“How did you start the Milky Way?”

Ah…yes. This is a question that we get a lot.

To be 100% honest, it wasn’t a ‘pre-formulated’ business idea.

There was no business plan.

And I never anticipated I would be helping other photographers in their journey.

It was serendipitous.

I dove into learning as much as I could about photography because I wanted to take better photos of my son.

Then…my photography business was born.

I started to get questions from other photographers popping up in Facebook messages.

I answered them.

I got more.

I answered more.

But soon, I was getting more questions than I really could handle while also trying to run my photography business and be a mama!

Rewind a few years.

I met Erin (the not-so-silent partner here at The Milky Way) when I was doing her maternity photos.

(it was one of my first outdoor maternity sessions!)

It felt like a first date when we met for coffee.

We didn’t know the how or what, but we just felt like there was some way we should work together.

I was telling her about the back-log of questions I had from other photographers, and she somewhat jokingly said…”well, create a business to help answer their questions…and hey, you could call it the Milky Way”

Then there was that quiet moment…hey…maybe…

But, it would be close to 6 months later before we got together to say, should we really do this thing?

Then Erin stumbled across a free training series from Marie Forleo (who neither of us had heard of before!).

Erin’s background is in marketing. She has a commerce degree…but after watching the videos, she said – “this woman knows what she is talking about…I think this is exactly what we need to connect the dots for us – I promise we’ll make our money back in the first 6 months”

Make no mistake – this isn’t a cheap program – in fact, we invested every cent we had made so far with The Milky Way (um….no pressure Erin…haha)

At the end of Bschool, we put together our very first e-course – Illuminate.

(and we were terrified!)

That was September 2012.

Since then, we’ve welcomed over 2,740 new students into the Milky Way family (and growing!).

We have been blessed with a community that encourages kindness, growth and shares positive energy.

And honestly…I don’t think it would have happened (at least not as quickly and with a supportive group of kind, like-minded people) if someone hadn’t shared a random link that Erin stumbled across 3 years ago.

So, today, we’re sharing that link with you.

{note: we’re part of their share-the-love program…so that is an affiliate link…just to be totally clear!}

I’m not sure what your dreams and goals are.

I’m not sure if you will have the same a-ha moments and take-aways as we did.

But, we encourage you to watch her free video series she puts out leading up to the annual launch of her 8 week online business program – Bschool.

Last year, I also took the program to apply it directly to my photography business – Milk & Honey Photography

(confession: I never fully got around to it…so I’ll be participating again this year!)

In the next couple weeks, we’ll be posting some of the key take-aways from the free training series

(as it relates to a photography business…because there are some serious gems in there you can apply to your studio!)

So…head on over here to check out the free video series!http://www.marieforleobschool.com/

(side note: registration is now open – just until March March 4th)