The Pod Photography

Narrator: Welcome to Yelp. As part of our Behind the Business series, we caught up with Erika from The Pod Photography to see how she manages her business on Yelp. Check out her story to find out how she became one of the largest portrait studios in Los Angeles.

Erika: The common thread in my business from when I started off working by myself to now as the biggest portrait studio in Los Angeles has truly been Yelp because Yelp has truly grown with us. From day one until now, I’ve changed the light bulbs. I take out the trash. I do everything. Even a decade later, I’m hustling every day.

I really believe in all of my marketing dollars going toward being in front of a person who’s looking for me. I didn’t have a lot of time for marketing, but Yelp was an easy way to do it. Clients were calling, and clients were calling so much that I thought, “Well, gosh, if I’m getting 30% of my business from Yelp, maybe it could be 60.” I started to see how valuable it could be if we did some advertising and giving our business a little bit of a boost.

It’s really important for us to curate the experience that clients get, and so it is literally on our monthly tasks of things to do to make sure that we’re putting our best portfolio forward on Yelp. Having the ability to upload as many photos as we want is really important to me because I can curate the experience that my potential client gets.

My best advice to any new business owner: Focus on your customer. Upload photos, put your business information out there, and respond to reviews. People love to feel heard and acknowledged whether it’s a positive or a negative review. The more love and energy and focus I put on curating our Yelp Page, the better clients we get from it.