One of the bonuses from investing in my education has been the friendships made while attending workshops and conferences. For today’s connection call, I am honored to introduce you to two instant forever-friends of mine, Cameron and Tia. They are high-school sweethearts that turned their passions for people, technology, and experiences into a thriving business. 

Celebrating wins of all sizes through th e lens of a photographer at heart. Sprinkled throughout stories and interviews with past clients, photographers and other business owners this podcast is designed to help you step into your purpose and to truly create a life you’re proud of, a life worth photographing and sharing.

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Today’s episode is brought to you by the FREE Book More Weddings guide. Learn how to easily capture behind the scenes video for organic referrals, local followers, and increased brand awareness. You want to make sure you have this before your next wedding! 

Review the Show Notes: 

Standing Out In The Crowd (2:39)

How Investing In Education Changes Your Business (7:15)

Advice For The New Business Owner (10:19)

Where To Invest In Education (12:50)

Keeping Up With Rapidly Changing Technology (16:50)

Understanding Emerging AI Technology (22:55)

Utilizing Youtube And Vlogs In 2023 (44:22)

Key Tips From Cameron + Tia (46:04)

Connect with Cameron + Tia

Website 

Instagram

Youtube

Mentioned in this Episode:

hopetaylor.com

Honeybook – Get 50% Off

chat.openai.com

cameronandita.com/weekly

Review the Transcript:

Quianna Marie
One of the best ways to grow and expand your business is to invest in education. As soon as I started booking flights to attend workshops, conferences, and events, my business really picked up speed. While I was absorbing all of the wisdom, education and encouragement from the speakers, coaches and leaders, I was also making new friends with photographers and business owners from around the country.

Today I have the honor of chatting with two new instant forever friends I made recently while attending the graceful gathering conference in Ohio, I felt the dazzling connection when Tia asked if I could be on her blog, and the conversation and passion just poured out instantly. I’m thrilled to introduce you to Cameron and Tia.

They’re are high school sweethearts that turn their passion for loving people and creating wildly fun and creative experiences into a thriving business. You can catch Cameron and Tia photographing weddings, families and seniors while also educating photographers with tried and true strategies as well as keeping us all on the pulse of new technologies and programs. Hello, chat GPT, AI, manychat and so much more.

This is an episode you’ll for sure want to be taking notes and share with a friend! With a warm welcome from Arizona to Minnesota. I can’t wait to introduce you to Cameron and Tia. Let’s get this party started.

Welcome Cameron and Tia

Welcome to Quianna Marie weekly, a podcast for creatives who love to celebrate wins big or small by dancing in the kitchen photographers who are excited to serve their clients and friends who are ready to chase really, really big dreams. You can find all of the resources mentioned in this episode at QuiannaMarie.com/podcast. Join me as I share weekly motivation, chat about growing pains, finding genuine connections and celebrating your wins through the lens of a photographer at heart. Come join me for a dance party. Ready loves though. All right, all right. Welcome to the party to and camera and I’m so so grateful you can join me today.

Tia
Oh, we are so pumped. You’re excited to be here.

Quianna Marie
You guys. First of all I have to mention I know you all can’t see this right now. But you all look really like legit right now.

Tia
Oh You rock Yeah. Cam loves TAC. He loves to explore what’s new, what’s hot, and Cam just can’t go can’t not go full out, like zoom calls with our clients things like that. He’s like, I am going out. I’m doing this thing.

Quianna Marie
Yes. Well, I am so excited. You’re here. And you are really like you’re really bringing your A game. So let’s get started. Yeah, so I would love to know. And this is a conversation that a lot of us are having in the wedding industry. And in many businesses, we are literally all doing the same thing. We have very similar cameras, we’re all using Lightroom. And we’re even using the same trend in audio right now for reals and tiktoks. So how did you to stand out in the crowd?

How Do You Stand Out In The Crowd?

Tia
I think the simple answer is being us. And I know people hate to say that. Hate to hear that. Because they’re like, Okay, yeah, I get that. That’s totally the answer I know. But I think the reality is, is if we can strip away all of the extra things if we can strip, strip away trending audios, we can strip away trending templates, all of these things, and just truly show who we are, we are Attracting and repelling every single moment in how we look how we show up what we’re wearing, what we talk about our cadence in what we’re talking about.

Literally everything is attracting and repelling. And there is such power in that. And I think when people hear this repetitive, like just be you just be you like, that’s great, awesome. Here’s something freeing about it. I think that Gen Z is often becoming a lot of entrepreneurs, clients, they are becoming the people who we are selling to. And they are so excited about putting their money behind people who they want to support people whose values align with them. And that is powerful.

I also think another caveat with Gen Z is that they want real, they want the actual real, they don’t want something that’s stylized, they want this real, true, authentic thing. And we can see that already in how they’re performing and how they’re operating on tick tock and just how that consumer is operating. And so there’s freedom in that. So if we can have a mindset shift of like, okay, yes, I know, be me like blah, blah, blah, but be me. And that’s going to affect my ROI that’s going to affect my bottom line.

That is powerful. And so I think we really tried to just have that mindset shift and reiterate that with ourselves of like, Hey, I don’t need to put on the show, I don’t need to have this extra element I don’t need to cure, right. And instead, we need to truly show off us and our values and what we bring to the table and I know you are such a proponent of that chiana. But I think the more that people can just have that little mindset flip of like, this is what people want to see this is what consumers want to see. And that will be so powerful.

Cameron
Yeah. And along the same lines, like being mindful of what other people are doing, but also in a sense like putting on some blinders and like just being you and doing your thing and focus on that and like get moving forward towards Oh,

Quianna Marie
yes, this is great advice. I love how you mentioned the kind of redundancy of Yeah, be You be you just be you Oh, what does that even mean? When you can truly show up and do things that excite you, and that bring you joy, and maybe even do things a little bit differently than just a streamline. And the first thing that comes to mind too, because a lot of our listeners are wedding photographers, and many are entrepreneurs and small business owners just across the board.

I almost think sometimes we got we get caught up in creating content that looks like cursive writing. Yes. Like it’s just sometimes especially in like wedding photography, Lala Land, we could feel like everything just feels soft, and emotional and just so pastely, right. And then sometimes our personalities just don’t always match up with that, like I know, with you and Ito when we met recently. And yes, Cam you were there.

Connecting At The Graceful Gathering

Before the graceful gathering. I mean, I just felt this lightning bolt of bright colors and energy and this combustion of just looking at you and being like, oh my gosh, I am you. You are me. I love you. Let’s be best friends. Yeah. And that wouldn’t have happened if you were presenting yourself in a soft, professional way. Right? There’s a piece of us that that also carries that it was specially with our wedding photography, but you simply being you vibrant, and so welcoming, and just just so fun to be around. That’s what really attracted me to you guys.

Tia
Yes, totally. I feel as though photography and wedding World Education in like, let’s say like five, maybe 10 years ago, was everyone was encouraged to present with a veil over them. It’s this veil of like, oh, it’s soft, and it has those pastel elements to it. And it was, maybe you were still shining through a little bit. But those bold magnetic parts of you just have that veil over it. Now there are so many more fonts, there are bold fonts, there are eclectic fonts like they’re crazy fonts. And that is so wonderful. That’s so powerful, because there are clients out there for that.

Quianna Marie
Yes. Oh, my goodness, well, let’s keep rolling, because I’m loving the way this conversation is going. And I love that, like I mentioned before we met each other recently at the graceful gathering, hosted by Courtney and Robert cannon. And I just want I would love your description or like your reasoning, why you to invest in education.

How Investing In Education Has Upleveled Your Business

Tia
Totally. So Kevin, I actually have a unique story. And I’m going to go over this a little bit with education, because there’s a big lesson in here, that cam and I got into our photography careers. And we got to this place where we were kind of coasted where we were like, Hey, this is working. We feel as though we have some good answers for ourselves. We know what we need to improve. We know this guy that we want to revamp like we’re feeling good about this. We’re not lacking direction, right.

This will come up more in our conversation. I think that Kim and I are very curious. I think that played for us really well in that we’d find free education or we’d find this course here or there, you know, just an online course that served us really well. And I think that served us well in this kind of like mid tier coasting of our journey, Cam and I actually had not done any in person education until last year in 2022. So that is crazy. We just were kind of operating in our bubble.

I will say like our local wedding industry doesn’t feel like they kind of go out of Minnesota much like a lot of our local communities stays here does their thing. We were kind of operating in our curiosity bubble where we thought it served us well. And we are missing a huge component, which was the same component in which we met. We have thrived in this last year getting to meet people find people that align with us align with our journeys align with where we want to go. And that has been really, really powerful. So we did not attend our first photography conference until last November, which was Thrive photo conference.

Since then, in the six months, we’ve gone to three conferences. We were able to find our first mentor hope Taylor and we were in her mastermind last year. James and Jess were also mentoring us for q1 of this year. So we’ve just got to like balsa walls. We were like, Okay, this works dog, like what were we doing in our own little bubble? And so I think this huge lesson for people who are early on in their entrepreneurship career is you need to find a community. We thought we had that we thought we had this local vendor community. But there was so much more out there for us. There were people like Kiana who could just like breathe life into us and our business. And that is something that you can’t find operating in your own little bubble.

Quianna Marie
Yeah, no, I think this is incredible. And I think that was one of the first thing that I learned once I started investing in education. I love that you mentioned Hope Taylor because she was my very first actually my second I’m jumping ahead because I did do a workshop with Jasmine star and like 2016 so crazy go, but hopefully there was like, yeah, she was one of my originals that I first invested in. I was it for the record, the first girl to fly the farthest for one of hopes workshop, California.

In fact, her mom was so sweet because you may know, Amy Taylor is just the cutest. And she was making her famous mac and cheese, and her cookies and all of her delicious meals for the workshop. And she had to meet me. She was like, where’s that girl that flew in from California?

Tia
That’s, that is so wonderful. Like, yeah, that’s just powerful.

Quianna Marie
Oh, my gosh, just so what advice would you give to someone who is starting their business now?

Best Advice For Someone Starting Their Business Now

Tia
Totally. I think it’s that education element of that you need to get out of your bubble. And you need to figure out what else is out there. And I still think looking back, Kim and I were doing that in different aspects. Like we were figuring out what systems we needed. And we were really researching. And we were figuring out what was new and what was not. But this element of connection is powerful. And whether that means that you’re getting a group together, that’s really synonymous with your goals. And with your journey.

Having a little mastermind chat once a week, once a month, whether you’re just getting together for happy hours, whether you’re virtually having like Workday is where you’re just working side by side, having like major CEO days where you’re checking in with each other of like, what is this big project that you’re doing? Let’s keep each other accountable? All of those things with the human connection is beyond powerful.

Cameron
Well, yeah. And also, beyond just trying to figure out okay, what steps do I need to take to get to where I want to go? Like, what is step one, what is step two, what is step three, and then taking those steps, find somebody who can show you the way, like show you what they did or show you how they think you might operate well, and like save yourself that time and that headache and all that extra work of just figuring out the path before you can even start walking totally. And

Tia
that path is always faster. That path is always faster with someone who has already gone down that path, and can just take your hand and lead you along it.

Who To Trust With Your Investment For Education

Quianna Marie
Yes, this is so interesting. And I almost kind of want to unpack this thought to where I’m getting. So I get all these downloads. As we’re speaking I’m like, wait a second, oh, I might. I want to share this. But I want to open up a conversation about sometimes we see a lot of these onto like entrepreneurs, coaches, mentors, these people that we see like get it right.

They’ve been in the wedding industry for 15-20 years sometimes. And they’ve made the shift into education. And the frustrating part is they’ve built their success, and they’ve built their growth, like their huge impact and growth 510 years ago, right? So that’s why I love connecting with new friends.

Now. It’s like, yes, businesses business, and a lot of the fundamentals really don’t change. It’s just that the technology that’s updating, which I can’t wait to pick your brain about that. So yeah. But I love that kind of friction that that creates where you want to look up to these mentors that have been there and have done it. And there are tried and trued. But there’s also an element about actually contacting your peers, right?

People that are in the same playing field right now that are battling these algorithms and battling these trends and trying to show up. So I would love if we can kind of like open up that conversation where you kind of want to, like where do you find these educators? And how do you know what to invest your money in? Yes. Okay.

Tia
So I think there’s two levels to that. Because the people who are these 5,10, 20 years ahead of you, there’s value to that, right? They built their business and businesses business, like you said, and I think that that can serve you in different seasons of your life. At some points, you need tried and trued workflows for your clients. And how much have those changed and shifted?

Probably not too much, right? Like the structure of those still align and seeing someone who’s that far ahead of you, wow, that can be super eye opening. But then that peer to peer relationship is so valuable. And so here’s what I think, tangibly, we find these conferences are awesome.

I think conferences have so much value, because there are a lot of people there. And that allows you to get in a pool and find people who really align with you and who are right fit. And be cognizant of, hey, 75% of these people are wonderful, they’re so kind, but they’re not the right fit for me moving forward for my time and for my energy, but you are gonna have that 25 That 10 That 2% that are super valuable to you moving forward.

If you can find a local events, I think that is really powerful always because there is that relatability of what’s going on locally in my market, or just like how our lives feel, whether that’s like Temperature wise, or seasonally or anything like that, like that’s important. And so I think local events are really, really nice.

I think if the more that you can get in pools, the better. And so whether that’s just like local entrepreneur events, whether that’s something specific to your industry, like photographer meetups, those things are just getting you in more and more pools to find better fits.

Cameron
Yeah. And that is something we did find some success in early on. Yes, like local groups and things like that. But also we struggled because we’re a husband and wife duo. We don’t need a second shooter on the day. Yeah, or anything like that. And so like, that is one easy way to get to know other people. It’s like having them second shoot with you, or you second shooting with them. But we struggled because we didn’t have that option. And so our only option for local groups was local meetups and stuff.

That was really hard. But I think there’s something to say also about that. Finding that educator or that mentor, because there’s something and like a hope tailor, or the canons that attracted both of us to them in some way. And so finding your peers through that educator in some way, even if the educator maybe teachers slightly different than what you would actually implement in practice. Now, those peers that are also attracted to something in them to can show you how they’re doing it, or they can talk through those two, that’s tricky finding people through this point of connection.

Tia
That is, Okay, that’s it. Your dear friend, Laylee Emadi, we attended her conference for the first year, the creative educator conference, and we were blown away by the people in the room. And that’s because Laylee is so great at Attracting and repelling, and she was able to curate a group that wholeheartedly wanted to put their money towards her, right, like we were talking about earlier. But that means that the people in the room were such great fits. And so when we’re talking about a 2%, fit a 25%, that we looked around the room, and we’re like, oh my gosh, can’t wait to meet this person. Oh, my gosh, I’m so excited about this. And that is where value really lies, for sure.

Quianna Marie
Oh, my goodness, you just gave me the chills. And I’m literally over here like happy dancy. Like, I know y’all can see this. But we’re just like vibing. And it’s so true. I love Seriously, can you like brought that full circle for us? Where it is really a combination of both? Right? It’s reaching out to those heavy hitters, those big mentors, and those big impact thought leaders, but then also creating that ripple effect in there like their fans, their followers, their friends, that really going to make those connections totally sure. Yes. Oh, my gosh.

So I have always been a firm believer that it is not the fastest, prettiest, smartest, richest businesses that actually stand the test of time, right? It is the ones that are most curious, and the most adaptable. So we have a lot of technology that is changing literally every two minutes. And so I would love your advice on how business owners can be more open to these technologies and how exactly we can even discover them.

How To Be More Open To Business Technologies?

Cameron
Oh, absolutely. So first of all, I love this framing because I feel like so often like, yeah, we see like all of us can think of people or all of your listeners can think of people that seem to have great businesses, they’re successful. They’re like Creatives or businesses, or even like big corporations that seem to be doing well and like living their life. And sometimes it feels like the business is just running itself. And it’s great. But then I think we also see the people kind of do the opposite of being curious.

They get complacent. And they just like letting their business run itself. And that’s fine, and it’s working, whatever. But then a new app comes or new editing tool or just something comes along.

While they have their head buried in the sand being complacent, all these other people and businesses just start running by and passing them. Yeah, their eyes are open. They’re being curious. And they’re taking these new tools and running with them. And so I think, like keeping that mindset of being curious is so important. Like, because, obviously, like there’s so many talented and skilled people out there.

Why It’s Important to Try New Tech

If we’re not actively working on our business every day, it’s so easy to just fall behind. And something you were saying to you earlier made me think of this, when we’re talking about at the beginning of our business and what we’re doing well, I think one thing we knew, and we did really well was finding a CRM really early like we knew that that is one of those things that sure were talented and skilled enough to handle all of our client communication to do the contracts and the payments and all that. But to some level, it wasn’t worth our time, it wasn’t worth the effort to do it. And so we made a point early on, like to get curious to find a program out there that could help us solve these problems.

So we got really lucky in that we found this program. Early on, I was also starting out that’s also trying to gain traction, and is protocol HoneyBook. And this program, did the things we wanted it to do. It looked pretty and most importantly, like it served our clients really well. And I remember when we found this, we had this discussion, because we had the option to pay monthly, or we had this option to you know, pay a big chunk upfront to get like this founders right and all this stuff. And we almost didn’t want to jump on it. We were early, we

Tia
had one wedding at the beginning of our business. So it was like this investment was like

Cameron
what we knew is important and eventually we jumped on it. It turns out that like one of the benefits of getting curious is like you don’t always know how it’s going to pay off in the long run. And for us getting curious. We found this program, it’s served our needs, it handles all of our contracts, all of our communication, all of our payments, the questionnaires for the clients.

Then also, we paid that founders rate. And that’s all we’ve ever paid for honey book. So now every single month that just a few hours of getting curious about pushing our business a little farther has helped our business grow and save money month after month after month after month. So I think keeping in mind that mindset of being curious just can pay dividends in the long run.

Quianna Marie
Yes, I love this. And I love that you jumped on that. Because you just don’t know, right? Like you have to do the research, you have to find it. And the first thing that comes to mind too, is and I know you guys have both your names for your businesses, and even mine is unique. But so for example, lemon eight just popped up, right. And it’s another kind of social media app I have. I know nothing about it. But I jumped on it right away just so I can get my domain name. Yeah, that’s it. I just want to reserve my name. I’ve scrolled it. I’m kind of learning a little bit about, like the culture of the app. I haven’t posted anything yet. But I, I sucked up that domain name or right away? Yeah,

Tia
absolutely. And I heard really early on speaking of Jasmine star, I heard her on an IG live when IG live had just come out. And she was talking about early adoption. Being someone who goes out gets after it and explores, because yeah, you might dump a little time into something and then it’s not quite worthwhile. Or it might be a situation like HoneyBook, where we pay the founders rate we never pay again, we have this for free. And Jasmine was talking about the reason why apps or features. So in this case, it was IG live at or I’m sorry, it was IG TV at the time. Oh, yeah, even more. Yeah. And the reason that these succeed, or people see success in them is that think about this Instagram, they had dumped all this time and resource into making IG TV a thing.

They probably had a full department that was working on it. They had people hired just to develop that. And so of course, they want to reward people, they want to see it succeed. So people who are using it are going to dump energy into making sure that that algorithm is rewarding that and so things like lemon aid, things like I remember when clubhouse came out that I was like, let’s go. Let’s give a track. Let’s like done some time and energy into it.

Quianna Marie
I was on to clubhouse for literally two weeks straight, almost 24 hours, and I was soaking it. Oh my gosh,

Tia
yes. Because that could have been something that panned out. I will say, Kevin, I were really early on in Tik Tok. And we it was right during quarantine. And I dumped all my time and energy into it. I said, Hey, let’s go, let’s make videos like crazy. We saw a lot of success for it from it, we were able to grow our audience to 65,000 followers. And it was just an insane thing because the market was not saturated yet. And tick tock wanted to see people succeeding on it, they wanted to see people growing a following, and being able to curate a community there. We were able to see a ton of growth just because we said let’s jump. Let’s figure this out as we go.

Quianna Marie
Yes. I love that. So let’s kind of take the conversation into the direction of AI this artificial intelligence. That is one thing that I actually am like waiting for people like you and businesses like you to like do the research, or even like my bestie dawn. Yeah, but tech savvy, creative. I’m like, Okay, you guys, go be the little seekers. And I’ll just kind of learn from you.

Tia
Absolutely. Oh, there’s so much going on? Oh, yes.

Quianna Marie
So first of all, before we even really dive into the tools, and all the ways that it can change our life, what what exactly is AI?

Cameron
Yeah, so big picture, AI is more or less a tool that’s trying to simulate human interaction, or human thought processes. And so it is a tool similar to tools that do automation that streamline processes and that work for you. But what makes AI unique is that it operates in a way that feels natural because it’s trying to mimic the way a human thinks and operates.

Quianna Marie
Okay, so that sounds really scary. Like that sounds like robots are taking over the world. Yeah, yes. So the first question I want to ask, which is a burning question, and it kind of ties back to the survival of businesses and being able to adapt. But what is your answer when someone says, is AI going to take my job away?

Is AI Taking My Job Away?

Cameron
Yeah, well, I mean, even stepping back farther, I feel like when we started kind of digging into I am, so I’ve always been really curious and love tech, and like, I want to be on like that bleeding and cutting edge of tech and just like see what new is out there.

I remember Tia ad I had a conversation early on, because she was terrified of like, No, thank you. Yeah. And we had a conversation early on, I was like, Okay, well, let’s talk about little things that we use everyday, like using Google Maps to navigate you to a new place. Like there’s an AI that you’re using every single day that you’re comfortable with.

We have tools in our house to raise the shades that’s like at sunrise or close them at sunset, little things like that. That’s like everywhere in our life. Every time you talk to Siri, like you’re talking with an AI it’s just like all these little tiny pieces in your life that you’ve grown comfortable with now, Cam and I over and over and over again. And it is a very like small use case and like very narrowly tailored AI, but it works and it helps you and it makes your life just that little tiny bit better. So why can’t we embrace that? Yeah, larger scale.

Tia
Yeah, man. I literally drive a Tesla that drives us everywhere. It has full self driving. It makes left and turns at traffic lights like it is full out. And so when cam press pause and was like, Look at how much this enhances your life. Why would you be resistant to something that’s enhancing your life? Have I opened a shade in two and a half years? No way they open for me that they close for me at times. And so I think that was really powerful when we think about how much can this aid us, this is super impactful. So why wouldn’t I tap into something that could do that for me?

Cameron
Yeah. And there’s also something to say about like being on that more cutting edge, like sometimes things don’t work perfectly. But if we like take the time to just spend a little extra time to invest to learn those shortcomings, or those slight areas where it can’t perform well, because like for our car, for example, it is terrible at roundabouts, we just got a new update two weeks ago, that makes it a lot better. But still. It’s just very interested to do a roundabout.

I know every time we come to write about I’m gonna turn it off and do it myself and then turn it back on. But after we exit the roundabout, it’s like little things like that, just like taking the time to learn it and explore it, even if it’s not, even if the tension isn’t necessarily to serve you 100% Right now, it’s like, okay, what can this do for me now? And then I’ll take that and run with it. And as it grows along with me, I can allow it to do more and more and more things.

Tia
So bigger picture, looking at industries as a whole, like, is this taking people’s jobs? Is this scary? And I like to think of it as okay, there’s a photographer who’s more powerful the photographer not using AI or the photographer using AI, obviously the photographer using AI. Am I more powerful than AI when I’m using it? Yes, absolutely. So if we can pair those things together, we’re going to be able to jump forward regardless. And I think that that really helps you have like when people are scared about copywriters and like is AI going to replace copywriters? No, copywriters who use AI are going to replace the copywriters that don’t.

Quianna Marie
Yes, I love this. And I am such as like storyteller, and I love, like similes and metaphors for business and just like life in general. And it actually reminds me with like the invention of drive throughs, right. So when fast food restaurants or I should just say restaurants in general started offering these drive throughs the, like, people didn’t know what to do. Like, they were like, wait, what? And so that’s just one example. I mean, everything from refrigerators, to the invention of trains, and airplanes, I mean, who in the right mind when you see this heavy chunk of metal flying in the air?

Keeping Up With Inventions and New Technology Through History

As ever gonna think, Oh, that’s a great idea. I think I’m gonna go go fly in the air today, right? Like, these are ways and I love how you gently reminded us that we are already using this AI technology in small portions, and not really being open to these possibilities. So what are some ways and some tools? Because I have this burning question of like, okay, so how are you actually using AI in your business today? Yeah, absolutely.

Cracking Into ChatGPT

Tia
So first base level, and I think it’s the easiest entry point is that people should be using chat GPT. If you’re not already, this is your sign. Go log on today. Chat. GPT is basically just a conversational model. So you can ask anything, you can train it on things, and it will spit back results or responses in a conversational way. And so chat GPT is a great entry point A because it does a lot. It’s not a really specialized model of AI. It’s something that can do a lot of different things for you. It’s also a really easy entry point, because it’s currently free.

That might not be the case for forever, but the base level is currently free. And so you can use it, utilize it to your heart’s desire. Currently, I have chat GPT open every single day, I am using it in some capacity every single day. And the reason I keep it open is because I think it’s one of those things where stuff like this is hard to implement in your business. You hear it and today, you might be excited about it. You’re like, Oh, that’s fun. I love hearing about this. This is exciting. Do you actually do it? I don’t know. That’s tough.

Cameron
You see that text pop there and you just stare at it, you have no idea what to actually,

Tia
yes, until the reason I keep it open is it’s forcing me to take like two steps backwards to take 10 steps forward. It’s something where I might need to learn this, I might need to spend some time prompting it. But then it’s going to just skyrocket me forward. And it’s just going to skip me right ahead. And so I think sometimes we’re resistant to like create a new way create a new workflow or create a new email template. Even though we know that when those two steps forward or two steps to the side, it’s going to catapult us forward. So tangible ways that we’re using chat GPT.

How To Use ChatGPT In Your Business Today

We are using it for blog post copy, we are using it for SEO titles. We are using it for metadata, we’re using it for slugs. We’re using it for naming new products. We’re using it for product descriptions on Shopify. Basically, anything that you can think of that needs some copy generated, that is a great place to start with it. We also use it as like an ideation tool. And so like topics for freebies or topics for your social media captions.

I love to get in there and what Ken was hinting at earlier about limitations of it. It may not spit out something right away that you’re like this is the winner. This is what I am naming my freebie. And that’s okay, that gives us an opportunity to dig deeper and to continue to prompt it and kind of just dig at it. I love to say really specific things like, I’m going to give you this and you’re going to give me this.

I will say, this is your role, you are a wedding photographer of 10 years, who’s super experienced who’s photographing in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and creating education for newer photographers that are in their first to third year of business. Really specific, right? Like, I’m going to spend a little time there, that’s the two steps backwards or to the side, where I really invest in there.

Then I’m gonna say, give me 10 titles that have a fun, exciting, flirty voice, our brand words that for this product, and then it’s going to spit out 10 titles. And in those 10 titles, I might love to, I might love five, I might love parts and pieces. That is where this ideation comes in of like, oh, okay, that was good. What if it was more like this, or, Oh, I loved the pot in this give me 10 more titles like this one, or give me 10 more titles that have more puns. And when you just dig at it a little bit is where you’re going to get results that feel really impactful for your business. I will say there’s a second element of like ideation. And then I would say just saving time, we do a lot of things in our business that don’t need me that really don’t feel like they need a person.

But ChatGPT can be the answer for so many of those, like, let’s say a meta description, how long does it take me to write a meta description on the blog? I don’t know, not like two minutes, three minutes, maybe five? It requires a little specialized knowledge of like, how am I going to work my keywords in there.

But chat GPT can do that for me. And you know, literally two seconds, I can say right, I can pop my whole blog post in there. And then say write a meta description for this boom, it’s done. It doesn’t need to have my flair. It doesn’t if I wanted to, I could continue prompting it. But it doesn’t need to. And there are a lot of things as solopreneurs or small businesses that we don’t have the MT manpower for and chat GBT can become that best employee ever that’s working for you at any time of the day and can generate so much for you.

Leading With Curiosity Over Fear

Quianna Marie
Yes, oh my gosh, I’m literally taking notes over here. Because I cannot wait to go back and re listen and think of the 27,000 ways that you just adjusted to use the chat. GTP like that is just amazing. And I feel like I love this because this is business, right? Things are constantly evolving, things are constantly changing. And I love how you made it perfectly clear that just because this is developing now doesn’t mean that like any jobs are going away. We just need to start adapting this to our features and adapting this to our daily lives. And I love that it doesn’t feel as scary that way when you are leading with curiosity instead of fear.

Tia
Absolutely. Yeah. So ChatGPT beauty is a great starting point. Um, I’ll just tell you like two more tools that we love using right now the one that I’m obsessed with is called the script and the script, you can pop a video into it. Let’s say like Quianna has a little video clip from this, we do YouTube as our weekly content. We want to be able to pop it in there and then maybe make like a social graphic, make a little reel, you can pop a video in there and say the first case, the first use case is it will then generate an entire script from the video, it will take a little bit to buffer and then all of a sudden there’s scripts that grab the entire thing. So first base level, what that’s insane.

Editing Video and Script with Descript

Second Level is that you can then edit from the script. So let’s say I want to just edit out a sentence. I don’t need to scrub through to find where I messed up that sentence or where I said something wonky. I can just look at it. Look at the script, highlight, delete, and it edits that out of the video. Yeah, insane.

Where I see a really awesome use case of this being for people who work in a service business for photographers, anyone in the wedding industry. They’re sending like welcome videos to their clients of like, oh my gosh, we’re so excited that you just booked here the next steps and they want to say hi Blake and Charlie and put their couple’s names in there. That’s something that cam and I would have used to want to have this really personal touch and so we would rerecord rerecord this time, girl that’s so much time

Cameron
Or even for webinars taking the word live out of Yes, recording when we want to

Tia
have an evergreen webinar versus live, we would rerecord those like welcome videos or thank you videos here, you can just highlight and you could swap it out, can you swap out huge sentences? No, that’s where limitations really come in. And that’s going to get really, really wonky. But words, we can just flip Blake instead of Charlie. And then all of a sudden we have this personalized video that still has your heart, and it still has your intention behind it. But it’s saving you so much time. On top of that descript you can then kind of reorganize the video in any way that you want.

So let’s say I’m taking something and I want to make it into a reel format. I can crop it for the reel. I can add other things like let’s say like a little cloud where I want to have it then populate the words so that it can be really accessible to everyone plus be really dynamic. It’s called dynamic text on descript. So it can be really dynamic and it will just generate that for you You can change colors, I can have a progress bar, I can have a like a little turn on the volume symbol to script can do it all right in there. To be honest, when I saw people originally doing this with podcasts, I thought people were typing out word for word, and syncing it up. And I

Quianna Marie
was like, and added the emojis.

Tia
I was like, what is that worth? While no, the script is doing it for them, the script is working over time. So the script I’m obsessed with, we are trying to utilize it currently just for social content, it’s a really easy way for us. And then also for anything that’s kind of a long form video that we’re putting together. That’s so fast and easy for us to edit versus us scrubbing through manually to try to find things we want to remove. Oh, I’m sorry, let me tell you one more thing.

Just script also has where you can remove filler words, and it’s literally just a toggle bar, where it removes pauses, um, us whole video, just shoot. They’re all out of there in easy. Yes. So the script is really, really powerful. It’s really awesome. one more tool that we’re really excited about. It’s called mini chat, mini chat is actually an automation. So it’s not fully AI is just an automation. But it is an automated chat bot that you could utilize on Facebook, Instagram, and DMS and stories in anything. And when I say this, you’re probably like, bots and Instagram. Why are you promoting this girl.

What is amazing about mini chat is it’s basically just like a funnel that you can create, and you can personalize. And it’s providing these responses for people that are real time. They’re fast, they have urgency, but they feel really dynamic and really exciting. So a lot of ways that people can utilize this as for example, will utilize it for a freebie or for a new YouTube video, people who want to be able to get links, and we can direct them right out of Instagram in the DMS where it feels really authentic.

It feels like we’re having this full conversation, but they’re not having to wait for us. They’re not gonna have to wait for us to reply to 20 people, we can have it to them right away. It also allows you to do integrations right in the DMS. So people who are signing up for freebies, they can literally be signing up right in the DMS, they are not having to go off the platform, which doesn’t feel native it can happen right there.

How that can look for a lot of service professionals is many chat can become another all star employee like chat GBT, in that you have someone that is working 24/7 that has no time off. They are literally responding ASAP. And so that could be service professionals who want to set up an inquiry workflow where people are getting custom proposal or semi let’s call them semi custom proposals where people can reach out and say, Hey, are you available on this date?

How much would this be for a six hour allotment? And then you’re having many chat answer questions like, do you want six hours or eight hours, when they check six hours, it then sends them this proposal for six hours, or it’s getting that information right away versus having to inquire on a website having to wait 48 hours for a reply. It can get them stuff ASAP. And we know that with inquiries, timing is key. And timing can often win out and so many chat just becomes this extra fun. Employee for you that’s working overtime.

Cameron
Yeah, I’ll add one more specifically for photographers is we’re using AI to edit our images currently. And it is a huge, huge, huge time saver. So there are tools like imagine AI. And after shoot edits that do basically the same thing, you train on a large set of the images you’ve already edited. And then the program will take new images that you add and add them to be like your style. And I mean, it’s not perfect yet. It’s getting you at 90% of the way there and you start to do small tweaks to it, but like the amount of time it saves and for how cheap it is, is incredible.

Quianna Marie
Wow, that’s amazing. And I’m just I’m having one of those epiphanies right now, where we’re having this conversation, and I’m almost having these, like, out of body experiences. Yes, I know, we just met but I’m really woowoo. And I was just feeling Whoa, like, you know, what did this conversation going to look like in five years? 10 years, 20 years, because what we’re chatting about now, like our moms are probably talking about, oh, we could just email birthday invitations, right? Like this is literally how just kind of numb we can be like to these new innovations and how we are actually utilizing them. So you’re just blowing me away right now with all these ideas.

How Quickly Technology Changes

Tia
Okay, I 100% agree. And it’s crazy, even like in this case, where Cameron and I will be on podcast interviews, talk about AI and then it might not go live for another month, or two months or three months. And in that time, things have already developed so far and so fast, which is a great mindset shift to get people to just dive in right now. So for example, with imagine with after shoot, they might have limitations.

They might have things that aren’t perfect right now. But if you can get in and start learning it and be there as it develops like we were with HoneyBook be there for the journey of it. You’re going to just be those five steps ahead from someone who waits and who feels unsure. and feels like Oh no, this is for me. I’ve heard that there’s a lot of problems with. I’ve heard it’s not perfect. But if you could be part of that journey that is so powerful.

Quianna Marie
Yes. I say like, Get on out, jump on it learn, be curious. So when you say, chat GPT, and I always get the letters wrong. Eventually, yes, that was right. But can you share with us like, exactly what is the link? Like? How do we do we just Google Chat? GPT? Like, what is how do you get that little cursor to start blinking?

Tia
Totally. So yes, you can just Google Chat GPT, you can also now go to ai.com. They literally bought that domain, and it’s like, wow, okay. so.com, I will say that every once awhile, it will come up with a pop up when you want to go to it, and it will say it’s at capacity, or it’s full, it’s some language like that. No, that that doesn’t mean that you can’t sign up. Some people see that. And then they’re like, oh, shoot, I can’t get on it, I can’t jump in. Now, that just means that it’s currently at capacity. Oftentimes, I will just refresh and then it’ll work or most of the time it’s working.

Customizing Slugs and Personal Website Links for Vendors + Events

So just don’t let that be a barrier. But then once you get in there, they’ll have just a little chat, bubble chat cursor that you can begin, you can literally type whatever I talk conversationally, sometimes I’ll be like, Hey, girl, can you give me 10 titles? And then I’ll be awesome, please, yes, I love it. But if people want some more tangible ways to get in there and get going, we have a link that’s Cameron and t.com/weekly. For this podcast that’s gonna have all of our resources. But the biggest thing is right at the top there, there’s a video that you can download. And it is me on the computer walking you through these examples.

So you know how we rattled off like SEO title slugs, like all those things are like a good ideas. How do I do this? Again? How do I make How do I implement this? It is a video of my screen going through all of these different ways. And it’ll show I’m creating a photography blog post, then I’m doing some ideation for some new titles for things so that you can actually see like, what are some ways that can prompt this? How can I use my brand voice? How can I add in these elements so that it can become a lot more tangible? And once you walk through that video, then you’re like, oh, Chad JPD, I’m ready to explore. And that’s the power of it.

Quianna Marie
I love that. Thank you so much for creating that link. I will absolutely be linking this in the show notes. I will be posting about it on the blog, and just splashing this link everywhere. And I have to tell you, before we move on, I have one more question for you guys. But like I was blown away by that link, you guys have so many resources and freebies and tons of education, and the fact that it was all in one spot. Okay, you all if you’re like, I don’t know about AI, I’m not sure. Go check out this link, you have to see it because you not only you’re going to want to learn from Kim and Tia, but then you may even kind of adopt this same kind of thing.

So if you are trying to get on more podcasts, if you’re speaking at events, if you are showing up at a mixer, and I mean, how cool would it be to create your own link with your own resources, all one stop shop. And then you have a cute little like QR code. And I don’t know if those are going out of style yet or not. But like, right, because things are moving so quickly. Yes, but what a powerful, like powerful tool. Thank you for sharing!

Tia
Oh, we’re so glad. And you know what we’ve been wanting to implement. So we do this for podcasts. We do it for conferences, like Jana mentioned, we also have been wanting to make personalized pages for any vendors that we meet with. So you know, we go down and we sit for coffee with a planner.

We’re really excited to share this, we want to share this, we want to make our pricing guide accessible to her at all times. Always real time updated so that she’s not having to reach out, we’re going to put together a personalized, like slugs for them that each have their own page, that then just feels like a really tangible way for service providers to be able to utilize something like this.

Quianna Marie
Oh my gosh, you guys are literally blowing my mind. Yes, no, I’m serious. And I want to chat. Okay, so I lied. I’m such a liar. I have two more questions. Um, one I really want to dive in quickly about your blog, and I was blown away with you guys just you were just I felt like just so natural and organic buzzing around the grace vocabulary and conference. And it just felt so organic and easy. You were doing fun little interviews.

Of course because I’m a stalker, I checked out your YouTube channel and I you know, I love it. And so I I love that you guys are very vibrant and welcoming. And that is the one way well, there’s like 27,000 but video really is such a great tool and a resource for us to truly showcase those. Those individual like just all the fun things that make us us so can you share a little bit more about your YouTube channel, how you are utilizing it and just like all the love and the heart behind it.

Tia
Yes. Oh my gosh, that is so sweet. Thank you so much Quianna! So our YouTube channel the main content is photography, education. So any photographers out there that want to learn about workflows posing, all those things you can find on our YouTube.

The reason that we do vlogs so blogs at conferences we do, Cameron and I love to travel and that’s a big part of our life that we love to share, we do travel vlogs is that we want to show that personality going back to the top of the podcast episode that is a way where we can show a lot of parts of us this unfiltered unveiled, how we operate together, our friends, our family, contacts that we make at conferences that become our friends, all of those things that allows us this big open door for people to see a lot more about us isn’t necessarily something that is like, hard hitting, boosting our bottom line or anything like that.

No, directly, not Yeah. Directly, no. But it allows people to get invested in us, and allows us to open that door so that they’re not just purchasing a course from us, because they like our education. Hopefully, they are purchasing a course from us because they got to know us. And they got to find someone who they wanted to spend their money on the same way that we were talking about conferences. And so it just becomes a fun hobby. But it is intentional in the way that it’s opening a door for people.

Quianna Marie
I love that. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much for this conversation. I love asking each guest. In fact, I’m so excited because I have to today. So I would love to do for each of you if you have a key tip to share some type of just experience or little fun fact that you wish you knew sooner. Yeah, totally.

Tia’s Key Tip:

Tia
So mine is a mindset shift by but I think that the more that entrepreneurs, small business owners can jump and build wings on the way down is better. The more that you try to not pause and get everything right and make sure that you’re saying the right thing, doing the right thing, everything’s perfect, the more that you can just go, whew, I’m gonna fling myself and I’m gonna figure it out. And I have confidence that I can figure it out as I go.

That is powerful. And I noticed so hard because many entrepreneurs are type threes on the Enneagram. And they’re like, I need to get this right before I do things. I love to do things. I love to do things to get things right. But I need to make sure it’s right first. And I think that it’s I want to really challenge people to just say, what if I go for it? What if I go for it and figure it out? Or what if I put something out that is 93% Perfect. And then I can figure out the 7% as I get feedback as I trial and error it and there’s so much power in that. And I think a lot of successes that Kim and I have seen in our business is when we jumped and when we had that faith in ourselves of like, I know we can do this. We just need to figure it out as we go.

Cameron’s Key Tip:

Cameron
Yeah. And then for me, I’m going to jump back to the beginning of our conversation. And it really do to, to get and to stay curious throughout your business journey. I think for someone like me, who also procrastinates quite a bit I know there can be some downsides to getting curious. I know. There’ll be times I’m editing late at night. And I’m like, You know what, maybe there is a new editing tool out there that can help me do this better or faster

I will spend four hours researching that instead of actually getting work done. So I know there can be some downside. I’m like, sir, why Yeah. But I also know that sometimes in that time, we’ll find a program like honey book or after shoot or something like that, that will help us so much down the road. And for me also now embracing structure and scheduled, like bulk or not bulk batch work schedules. Yeah.

I’ll set aside now, at least an hour a week, to have that curiosity time to literally just sit down no other tasks on my plate. And just Google to use chat, GBT just do something to get curious to see what new is out there. And anytime throughout the week that something pops in my head. I’m like, Oh, maybe I should stop working. And get this done. I know now Okay. That’ll be that’ll be my Friday to ask I can I can do it then. But taking the time to be and to stay curious. So help so much down the road?

Tia
Yes. So listeners that have heard all these tools. And they’re like, Where do I even start today? I’m feeling so unsure about this. How do I implement if you can take camps curiosity hour, and carve out a time on your schedule, where you say, This is my curiosity hour, this is where I’m going to explore. This is where I’m going to give these tools a try go through this page and just kind of click on some see if they’re a good fit. For me. That’s where things start becoming tangible is through a curiosity, our

Quianna Marie
oh my goodness, you guys are so incredible. I am so grateful for your time, and your enthusiasm and your heart behind truly helping others. Whether it’s capturing them on the best days of their lives or helping entrepreneurs fall in love with Mondays. You guys are seriously killing it. And I’m just I’m just so grateful. So how can we find you? I know you mentioned the link. Um, I know that I instantly want to be your BFFs even though we’re across the country from each other, but how can people find you and work with you?

Tia
Yes, you rock so you can find us everywhere at Cameron and Tia so it’s Cameron C A M E R O N and And Tia – T I A we are on Instagram Tik Tok YouTube everywhere like that. And then the you can find all of those tools on cameraandtia.com/weekly

Quianna Marie
Amazing, I appreciate you too. so much thank you and I cannot. I can’t wait to see you at the next conference. Love it. Thank you have a great day. Thank you for joining the party. Your Cameron and Tia are out there. They’re building sustainable and professional businesses while making their clients and friends feel loved and appreciated.

This is your sign BABY. This is your sign to sign up for that next conference book about flight. Attend an in person event in your hometown and surround yourself with more souls that share similar passions. Make sure to scroll the show notes and check out cameronandtia.com/weekly to learn more about all the programs, apps and freebies discussed today.

Plus, like I mentioned this episode earlier, it’s totally worth taking a peek at the link Cameron and Tia made specifically for this podcast interview. They’re making links like this to share for events, podcast interviews and for their clients. What a great way to share your resources and start building your affiliate links backed by your heart and passions for sharing and serving your clients. Thank you so much for listening. I am beyond grateful to have you here in my corner on this journey as we continue to chase really, really big dream.

Keep on dancing baby cannot wait for you to join for future connection called Hey, love you. Bye. That’s a wrap on another episode of Quianna Marie Weekly. Thank you so much for your listenership and support. You can find the resources and show notes for this episode and more at Kiana murray.com/podcast. I’d be honored if you show your support by leaving a review and rating on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep on dancing.