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When The Market Becomes Your Mentor with Ash Fox · Plan Like A Boss | Planning, Productivity, and Strategy for Entrepreneurs

• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, if there's a solopreneur out there listening, and maybe they've stumbled into an unexpected niche just like you did, what is the first practical step you'd tell them to take even this week to test if it's a real business?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm, okay, let me think about that for a moment, Tanya.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I would make a goal for yourself.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I would at least set, I'd set a number, like a number that feels realistic, like even a small number.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'd set a number like 10.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I want to test this on 10 customers in the next month.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And whether that means like giving the service away for free, what or giving the product away for free, or whatever, but I want to have a test case.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: It could be 10, it could be 20, like a number that feels comfortable.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: A number that feels a little scary, but a but also not too scary.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And test it.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like put it in front of those people, get the feedback, see what they have to say.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because that's the only way you're gonna kind of know.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and for me, that's what it was.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to Plan Like a Boss.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Tanya Lawson, and today I am here with Ash Fox.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: She turned photographing marriage proposals into a thriving proposal planning business that's helped thousands of couples say yes in the most unforgettable way.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Ash, welcome to the show.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so happy to have you here.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me here, Tanya.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I like to always start these interviews by asking my guests to tell me their story because I think the story of how we evolved into what we have now is so important and something we can really learn from.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us your story.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm happy to share it, Tanya.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I have been doing marriage proposals.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, I'm a marriage proposal planner advisor.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um this is a career that a lot of people are like, wow, I didn't even know that career existed.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like to plan proposals.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like they've heard of wedding planners, but what's a proposal planner?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And essentially, I work with men and women, mostly men, because we're still in America, mostly men propose to women, um, lots of women for who's in the women as well.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I help them with everything from concepts, ideas on how to propose.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: I help them execute the proposal with beautiful locations, with decorations, with gorgeous photography to document the moment and videography, live musicians like playing special songs of theirs to really personalize the experience, like all the all the things they need so that they can just show up and propose.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so my story starts where I mean, I never expected I'd be doing this, Tonya.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like it just, I was a creative person, I was always an artistic person.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I went to school for art um back in a million years ago, not that long ago, not that old, but yeah, but a long time ago.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in New York City at NYU and I was studying to be an artist, like really just it was a fine art program.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it was the beginning of like the crash with the economy and the whole thing when I graduated.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I was asking that the professors were telling us like, you should either go be a bartender in Bushwick, which back then was not like a trendy hip area that it is now, um, and then make your art at night or during the day, or go move to Shanghai, chant China, and you know, work for an artist there to get your start.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, ah, I don't like any of those either of those options.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And meanwhile, I had been doing a lot of freelance creative work my whole throughout my um college time.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was doing things like styling, like fashion styling, graphic design, videography.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I was just trying a lot of different things and I didn't know.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So when I graduated, I was like, you know what?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'll just carry on this freelance life that I've started in school and just see where that leads versus like going one of those opposite directions.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I did.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And lo and behold, I ended up getting into photography at one point.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And really the way that I um, you know, long story long, but I started doing photography and it just the reason I doubled down on it was because I was getting good feedback.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something I want to just tell your, you know, audience is like sometimes we're confused, like where, what path should we take?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth of the matter was, I just tried so many different creative pursuits.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the one that I was getting the best feedback from was the one I started pursuing.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I was hearing from people, you know, that was the best picture I ever had of myself.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm like, all right, you know what?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'll, I'll, I'll work with this.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just keep going.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so lo and behold, one day I get asked to do someone's marriage proposal and photograph it.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got to remember, like, if we, you know, roll the clock back to like 2011, um, which is like around the time I did my first proposal, I'd already been a photographer for a few years.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: People just didn't have pictures of that.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like today, where like we literally have a photo of everything and everyone's sharing everything and documenting everything and videos of everything.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Back then, it really was like people had photos for their wedding, maybe like child's baptism or you know, bar mitzvah, something like that, like for their children, but not really like all these photos of their whole journey through their, through their relationship.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was just the start of this.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this man asked me, like, can you do photos of my proposal?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, huh, that's interesting.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: But essentially, essentially what happened was I did this proposal and I was like, huh, wow, this is actually one of the most romantic moments in your whole life.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why wouldn't you want pictures of it?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I did this proposal.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was wonderful.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then the following week, it was like almost like the universe was like nudging me.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Following week, I got asked to do another proposal and it was in the same location as the first one.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of took that as a sign that, like, huh, this seems to be again something that's working for me.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, first I was trying to figure out what to do creatively.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then once I found, you know, that photography was my thing, it was like, well, what niche am I gonna be in?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like sometimes people are like, well, what's my niche?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't pick my niche.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: My niche picked me.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's like kind of what happened.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so I carried on.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And next thing you know, just people keep on coming to me for proposals.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I get then the daily news calls, and they're like, you're the proposal photographer of New York City.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: We want to write about you.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then I kept going, even more people are contacting me.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then I realized like my clients needed more than just photography.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was so much more they were coming to me from for anyway.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, not only was I photographing their proposal, but I really was like a coach/slash confidant for them to like really guide them through this process because most people never propose before.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Or if they have, it was like one time and they feel like they maybe didn't do it right.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so they met someone else now, and they're gonna, on their second marriage, gonna propose again.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so, um, so yeah, I just noticed through what I was doing what the market was telling me there was more of a need for.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I realized my clients really want private venues.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, not everybody wants to propose in a public space.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people are private people.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I started offering private venues besides the photography, and people want decorations and people want videography, and people might want music.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So all these things started coming together with different offerings and different ways to serve the client that I knew really well at that point.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's kind of how it all came to be.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And in the beginning, you know, for not even just the beginning, Tanya, like one of um it took me years before I built the team, like years and years and years.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I literally did everything myself for a gazillion years until I finally, about four years ago, realized like this doesn't make any sense.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, this is um, I'm not gonna be able to sustain the way that I'm going right now.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so something has to change.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: A team has to be built because this is not going to carry on in in a way that's good for my clients, in a way that's good for my own personal life, in a way for the evolution of my business.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was like that big change that had to happen.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So long story long, um, that's and that is a very abbreviated version of my story.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's such a beautiful story.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so so true to the artist mindset to trust that intuition.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm my background, I am a professional clarinetist.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: So so yeah, I, you know, I went through music school and all of that.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think learning to trust our intuition is so, so important.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: And how did you how did you so you you we were talking about you trusted your intuition?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not it was a logical, oh, I'm gonna start this business and I'm gonna do X, Y, and Z.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: It just evolved.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you trust your gut and and instead of sticking with like, you know, the obvious, like safer, comfortable choice?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think, I think that the more you're solidified in something, the harder and the more comfortable you are with all the cushy things you have in your life, the harder way harder it is to take chances.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Fortunately for me, I was in a very like I was in the void.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was truly in the unknown when I started this.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where the most like signs from you could say it's the universe God, you could say from like just life itself.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I sometimes just say sometimes I say God, sometimes I say the market, because they're both like, they're both giving you signs, right?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I was in this kind of empty space of like, I've just graduated college.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: What am I gonna do with my life?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I tried so many different creative things.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I was in this void of like just getting signs and just seeing like, hmm, is this the direction I'm gonna go in?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like I've always loved fashion.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like a fashion, a fashionista.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I love fashion, I love thrifting, I love all these things.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I always thought, oh, I'm probably gonna go into like styling or fashion or something like that.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I wasn't getting that same flow.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I did have clients at the time, but it wasn't this, I wasn't getting this like overwhelmingly like sign that, you know, this is what you're supposed to go down.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so like I said, it was kind of the benefit.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was fortunate that I wasn't in a space that I was fully like a lot of people who are fully established, let's say in a corporate career, they're so comfortable.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like things, there's a lot of comforts of the corporate world that then to like take a big chance and go in a whole new direction.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even imagine how daunting it is.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: I have a lot of people close to my life who have taken those leaps and I've seen through them.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And they look at me and they're like, whoa, like it's so great that you never worked for anyone else and you just truly have been doing this the whole time on your own.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, yes, because I didn't know what um and I didn't really know anything else.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I just was in that uncomfortable void for so long.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now I will tell you something, Tanya, is that now that I have established something for 15 years, been doing this, now is where I'm in the cushier space of like where it's hard to make changes because it's like, ooh, things, you know, or let's say I've been certain things, like all kinds of things you can imagine in business that you can get attached to certain ways of doing things, and and then a big change has to happen, or like four years ago when I had to change everything.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I had to hire new people and and I had to upgrade existing assistants and train them and all these things like that.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Was oh my gosh, I lost hair over it.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like I like was like going crazy over it.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was hard because it was, it was very so so I have a lot of empathy towards that.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: That like it isn't, but sometimes you just have to lean in because you have to trust that there is a better way of doing things or there's a better path for you.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like you know, also when you're just feeling at your breaking point, right?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like that happens to people too, where you're just like, I've got all this creative energy and it has no outlet.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And unless it gets poured poured into something, like I'm gonna go mad at some point, right?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's all these different ways whether hopefully you can trust yourself before having to hit like that rock bottom moment.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes people have to hit that moment.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, 100%.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm with you, I've never had a corporate job.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: I've never had like a what I call a real job.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: And in my senior year of high school and my first two years of college, I worked as a grocery store cashier at Food Lion.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then I quickly learned I could teach a few music lessons a week and make even more money than working 20 hours a week at a grocery store.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I started doing that.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been self-employed ever since.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, now you mentioned that you really were a one woman show for a long time, and then you realized I this isn't sustainable.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we are very anti-hustle culture over here.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And having sustainable businesses are so important because you will you will burn out.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've burned out, you know, I hustled my way, I say I hustled my way to cancer, overcame cancer, now we're back building things again.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And what what what's the first hire you made?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, is there a point that made you is is there a single point that made you go, no, this is it.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have to hire somebody.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then what was the first hire you made?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: There was, and I will tell you I will tell you a bit about I'm just going back there in my mind because it was such like a heavy, daunting time that like just I'm taking a minute to just get back in that that zone.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, essentially what happened to me is that just to roll it back, was we were oh my god, we were on fire.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like 2019, oh my gosh, like overwhelmed with incredible people from all over the world coming to New York to propose to work with me, my calendar fully booked up.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I was rolling, I was just, you know, living life in New York City, doing it all.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I hit a point where um I, it was great.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was all great.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then COVID came and everything had to get canceled, and we had to res, you know, reschedule things indefinitely, like when you can finally take your trip in two years from now, you know, there were things like that.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like nothing.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so everything was clear.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I literally was just walking the street, the empty streets of New York, like just, oh my gosh, like slowly getting back to a part of myself that I had no access to for years.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Cause I had just been, like you said, I really was hustling.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I really was.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was very much in that survival mode.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was very much in the mode of like, I had a thought process in my head of like, I'm an artist and I'm so lucky to finally make a living being an artist.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I felt like anything, if I stop, I'm gonna lose it all.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like I always kind of had that thought in my mind, like I have to just keep going and keep it up.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And even when COVID happened, oh my lord, I was on every social media every day, like telling proposal stories, like still hustling, still doing it.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then COVID.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but during COVID, I also, like many people who are fortunate enough to get to go on unemployment and didn't have to, you know, be out there saving lives, right?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And doing other important things.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was able to be very introspective and meditate and like get back to my kind of my soul and like my soul creativity.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And like, and that's an interesting thing, Tanya, as you you probably have had experienced this before from what you just shared.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: But when you when you get back to your soul, then the soul starts yelling at you, being like, wait, I want to express myself in ways that I'm not like I don't have access to, but the way that you've designed this life doesn't give me full access to all these ways that I want to express.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so COVID eventually now the city opened up again, tons of clients, everybody coming back, everybody needing things.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And now I went from zero to a hundred, and all of a sudden I started breaking down.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was, I was so grateful.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yay, I've got work again, yay, I've got my clients again, but I wasn't the same person anymore.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I had like become this person who was like not comfortable with the status quo.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so sorry for a long story long, but I just wanted to give it context of how I got here.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: So what ended up happening was fast forward to 2022, it was gonna be winter.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And winter for me, so like my busiest season of the whole year is December.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like we literally have multiple proposals every single day in December.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's wild because it's Christmas, everyone's coming to the city, they want to get engaged, people from all around the world.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just, it's wild.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so then mid-January to March, it's like all right, it's just our slower time.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Reason being is that New York City is freezing cold, it's snowy, and just not as many people are coming into the city.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just not the busiest proposal time.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said to myself, you know what?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is a good time for me to get out of New York and take a chance.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I took a chance.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: I went to Denver, Colorado for a month.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: I rented a place, like a random, I went to basically a random city that I didn't know much about at all.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: I rented a uh an Airbnb essentially for a month.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I decided I'm going to train my right-hand man, my top assistant, to be me on site and like to essentially be me on site, like obviously just on site on the proposals.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I will still be advising my clients, doing planning sessions with them, everything that they need.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: But he's gonna be there to photograph the proposal and make sure the setup happens and all of that with my other assistant.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And what ended up happening, Tanya, was really surprising.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just was like, is this gonna work?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if this is gonna work.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if people are gonna be okay with this.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was so scared of it all.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: But we just tested it because we didn't have a lot of work going on then.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, let's see, and if the client doesn't want it, I'll fly in and go and be on site for that.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what I did.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I was flying back and forth constantly and doing all this.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually what ended up, we ended up realizing was I trained my my lead, my lead photographer so well, and he became like team lead that it was like, no, they don't, it's it's actually not generous of me to anymore be in this role.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just not because I'm taking this away from creative people who could be doing this just as well as me in the way that I teach them and train them and prepare them.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And now they get to have work.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And now I get to serve more clients who need my help in the ways that I can best serve them, which is really advising them, helping them plan it, helping them figure out all the things that they need and want, um, and also executing the vision that I've created for the past 15 years.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and just building a team that, you know, has the same ethos as me, like love, quality, artistry, like those important pieces.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so as long as that was fulfilled, it was unnecessary for me to be on site for every proposal, photographing literally every, but it's like, no, I've got great photographers, I train them to shoot like me.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what happened.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm guessing that the wedding proposal business can be pretty complex in that everything has to go right because you can't have a honey, sorry.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you look so far, sorry, that's like redo that.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm guessing you build in systems to make sure everything flows smoothly.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: We do, and we're always refining systems because things happen all the time.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's so many things we do our best to control, make perfect experiences.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm a perfectionist to my detriment at times, but I love things looking beautiful, experiences feeling beautiful.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there are, there's so many moving parts.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: They have to be perfectly organized.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: You need people who are very organized to look over it, oversee it all, um, including me and my coordinator and my team.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so yes, you're right.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: We need systems and we have as many as we can, and we're always and we're always refining because that's what it takes.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, how do you price something like this?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Since everything is gonna be so different.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question, Tanya.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, what we ended up doing was we have okay, so with proposals too, it's like everyone, I want everyone to get to have a nice experience, like no matter what kind of tier you're in, because everyone's in a different budget range.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And also, like, right, we're in America right now, the economy, not just America, the whole world right now is having like an economic crisis with like the wars and all the craziness in the world right now.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so everyone is a little bit wants, wants to get the most for their money.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's important to me to offer, have different offerings to help people at different ranges.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we do is we essentially have different tiers that you can work with us in.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're someone who um, you know, wants like a private space, for instance, we have four different categories within private spaces.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is ultra luxury, like you're getting hundreds and hundreds of real gorgeous flowers and like a premium roof, and like it's a it comes with like soup denuts, everything.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're not in that tier, there's a tier underneath that.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not in that tier, there's a tier underneath that that's even more simple.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and with just like very simple decorations.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's a tier under underneath that where it's like no decorations, but you get your roof, you get your photography, you can add everything a la carte.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we try to accommodate people where they're at.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, another thing I'll mention that I was so resistant to forever was I personally did not want to do anything with silk flowers.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like the flowers just either have to be real or they're not real.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: But what I've learned is that there are my clients who are gonna who want real are always gonna get, we're always gonna get them real.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And real is the real price, is what real flowers are.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're they're not cheap.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Flowers are very expensive.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have the money, we can do it.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I have, I have other clients who I realized they still want a beautiful look, but they just don't have the budget.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started doing some mixing in some silks.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like we don't go crazy.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like, I would never want someone to show up for something where nothing smells.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want things to still smell good.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you gotta have some fresh mixed in.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so we'll do like real petals and then maybe like a silk display with it for, and this is just for people who are maybe on a more of a budget, but um, it's just about kind of meeting.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: People where they're at.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And um obviously you need to know your customer.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And like my customer has to be within a certain range to spend.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: But um does that answer your question, Tanya?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, no, it does.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate that you're not just in a luxury niche.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: You really offer a beautiful experience at a variety of budgets.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I because everybody deserves a beautiful proposal.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly it, Tanya.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like it is, you know, anything that's like where you could DIY it, right?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Anything that's not DIY, you would say is a luxury service in a way, because it's like even just to get your nails out.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you do them at home, DIY, get them done.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a luxury, right?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: So what I do, it's it is a luxury service, but you're right.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like we want to still meet people where they're at.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now, proposal planning, until I met you, I had no idea this existed.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: None whatsoever.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, it's a brilliant idea.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to think about the solopreneurs listening to this.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and maybe they want to start a business that there's there's no existing playbook for right.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: One, how do they know if it's a good idea?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: And two, how do they even go about starting it?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, so my advice with that, it's one, is for sure, it's it's not easy when you don't have anyone to look to.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: It really isn't.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a creative person with like a new idea, something that hasn't been done before, you haven't seen it done.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the only way to know if it works, honestly, is you just have to try.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to get out there.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I you have to just get feedback.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have to, you have to give the serve, if it whether it's a service or a product, whatever, you need to test it.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: So people, you've got to get in front of people.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: If it's a product, you need a lot of people to use it and test it and see if they feel like, hey, this is a need that something that's working in their life, that that, well, wow, this made made this task easier, or vice versa, or this is a beautiful product, whatever it is.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: You need to get feedback from people.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then if it's a service, the same thing.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: You need to get out there and provide the service and see if people, what the feedback is.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the thing is, is that it's really, it is, you can say in numbers, you need to, you need to have a good sample of people to test these things on to know if what you're creating has has value, right?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I joke sometimes, like you don't want to be like that person on American Idol who comes on who their dream has always been to be a singer, but they actually unfortunately don't have the talent that the market is gonna pay for to listen to like buy their records, right?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be that person.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't want to pour everything into something just because you have a it's great to have a dream, but you don't want to pour so much into something if the market isn't telling you that it's viable.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so, for instance, like I said when I started, I was I was doing so many things.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Tanya, like I forgot to mention this.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: I had a t-shirt business, rock and roll t-shirts.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I, oh my god, oh, you're done for I loved doing this.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was something, it was such a passion of mine.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: I had this rock and roll blog called like Ash Fox uh style blog or something.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I did styling and I styled these rock and roll t-shirts and I was selling them to stores.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: But here was the thing like there was then the crash and the stores couldn't sell the t-shirts.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I just was noticing, I'm like, you know, I'm getting, I'm getting good feedback from this, but it's not, it's somehow not like, woo, you know?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then, like I said, I was trying so many other things.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And when I did the photography, it was like literally everyone wanted it.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like everyone wanted my photography.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: They're booking me up, they're putting me in magazines, they're writing about me.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, I think that's a sign that this is something that's working, right?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then the proposals blew up and people are like, well, we love the proposal.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, it's not always what you want.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, like sometimes you get choked, like the niche chooses you, or people want people, you just gotta, you gotta test, you gotta put yourself out there.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And now, you know, now you got social media, which really is helpful because if you have a good idea and you put it out, um, I mean, you gotta be careful because you don't want it to get taken, but you can test certain things and just see how people are responding really quickly with social media.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, your business is really built around your personal brand.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you train your team to deliver your experience, your brand without diluting?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's such a great question, Tanya.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's something that I had to think about a lot.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: But thankfully, I feel like my business is more based on my ethos than me as a brand.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, even though, you know, I can get out there and talk about what I do, like we're doing right this right now, even though I've had articles written about me, it's not like me.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, like what's in my heart and what I value.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: And what I value is, you know, I said it before, it's artistry.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like things need to look good.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: There needs to be an art an artist behind it.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like my team, we're all artists.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's number one.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Two is love.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's got to have the heart.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like the people who work with me, we care about my clients.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like we care about their love story.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: We wanna create a memory they're gonna talk about for the rest of their lives.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then three, it's like quality, you know, like we want to create a high quality experience and do our best to do that.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like we care about having repeatable quality.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: So because they all share those ethos, that's truly the brand more than it is like my name.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: So if there's a solopreneur out there listening and maybe they've stumbled into an unexpected niche just like you did, what is the first practical step you'd tell them to take even this week to test if it's a real business?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let me think about that for a moment, Tanya.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: I would say I would make a goal for yourself.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like I would at least set, I'd set a number, like a number that feels realistic, like even a small number.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'd set a number like 10.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want to test this on 10 customers in the next month.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And whether that means like giving the service away for free, what or giving the product away for free or whatever.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to have a test case.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: It could be 10, it could be 20, like a number that feels comfortable, the number that feels a little scary, but a but also not too scary.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And test it, like put it in front of those people, get the feedback, see what they have to say.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because that's the only way you're gonna kind of know.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and for me, that's what it was.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like I, when I had done around 12 proposals, at that point it had been like around 12.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Tanya, these just came in the door.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was not advertising.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like, they were flowing to me, which I know is like a crazy privilege, and also it's like mystical in a way.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why did this all come to me?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it did.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I made a video, and um, I'll just tell you this quick little story.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I back then I was a Jill of all trades photographer.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing everything, all kinds of photography, corporate photographer, everything.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: But all of a sudden, these proposals were coming at me and I was doing them and I had done like 12 of them.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I wanted to make a video for my website to just be like, hi, I'm Ash Fox, I'm a photographer in New York.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: And my assistant was shooting it.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: I had no script.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, you know what?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just put this video on pause.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: I can just make a quick video to talk about proposals for a minute because I've got some knowledge, it'll just be like one of the things I share.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I started talking about proposals.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: We put this video on YouTube.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: My phone is ringing off the hook.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, you are the expert, you know everything, you need to do this.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I've done 12 proposals.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I hadn't done that many, but they were like, whoa, I really trust you because I had a lot of knowledge to share.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that's what I'm saying.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, pick a number that feels comparable 10, 20, whatever, 15.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and go out and see what you learn from those customers because also they're gonna help you refine whatever you've created, whether it's a product or a service.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like they'll give you the feedback, like maybe it's a hair product.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this didn't help my hair, or this did, I like this about it, or it's too sticky, you know, like, you know, it's a suntail motion.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it makes my skin too white, or it's, you know, not enough coverage.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like you'll get the, you'll get the um the feedback.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or if it's a service, they'll tell you, like, oh, I liked this part of the service, or I didn't like this part.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to get the feedback because that's what helps you just keep iterating and refining, which you'll be doing for the end of time.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've been in this game 15 years.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're iterating every week.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're changing and refining things every week based on the feedback we get and just what we learn through through you learn through doing, you know?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: The life of an entrepreneur is really not something you learn in school.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's true, you truly have to be out there doing it every day.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like you could read all the books, you're they'll only get you so far.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and podcasts are great.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: I did it at I will say at my start, I watched a lot of YouTube's about entrepreneurs.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's great that you're listening to Tanya's show because this is this is it's really helpful to hear from other people's experiences.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, you got to get out there.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's the most important thing.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the story of every entrepreneur.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: They just, they, they felt the fear and did the scary thing anyway.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: I like to wind these up by asking my guests the same question.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to think way back to that girl who just got out of school and was told, hey, you should be a bartender or move to China.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to go back to that younger self.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: And what piece of advice would you give her with all the knowledge you have now?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: The thing, you know what, Tanya, honestly, the advice and I'm closing my eyes because it like puts me in the headspace, but I I feel like I think I did the right thing, to be honest.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: I trusted my gut.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: I stayed creative, I tried a lot of things, and I saw what led me.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just saw where I was being led.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I did the right thing.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you were to ask me, go back to that self and ask her, what would you tell her about love or relationships or dating?
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I would have a lot of advice for her.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be like, don't do this, don't do that, don't I did all those things wrong.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: But did I do feel I had good instincts?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't even know if I would tell myself anything because I think that that young self really did do the right thing.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: I dabbled, I tried things, I follow but what was working.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and in those ways, I think I I really, I really did, I think I did the right thing.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I quit when something wasn't working.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was a photographer in the nightlife world for about two years when I first started, and I was so grasping so tightly to this job because I was getting written up about it.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was feeling really proud of myself.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: I love that world.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love music, but that world was not serving me because I was up all night, I wasn't getting paid much, and I had to make a big leap to like try doing other kinds of photography.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when all of a sudden then the proposals hit.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I just kind of I was willing to make those shifts.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so anyway, I don't know if that perfectly answers your question.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: I would just say keep going to that person to that self.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think that perfectly answers it.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: And anybody out here listening, they can hear that advice and take it themselves of like what you said.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, so like Ash said, if you're out there and you're you're trying to make it work, keep experimenting.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: Trying.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Listen to what works, see what doesn't, and stop doing that because that is how you learn.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: And until next time, keep planning like a boss.