Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Martinez.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Daniel. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
It all started back in 2014 when I had to make one of the toughest career decisions of my life. Here I am 30 yrs. old with no college but with plenty of experience in the industry I was in for nearly 10 yrs. I literally worked my way from the bottom to the top and excelled in all I did.
The problem was with a higher role came more responsibility and more time away from my family. Work life balance was not in existence it was like more work with no life. At the time, my son was 3months old when I decided to walk away from my career to focus on what is most important to me which is my family.
Thinking I would bounce back quickly that sure was not the case. I was unemployed for 6months! They said I was overqualified in multiple interviews even after offering to take a lower salary the answer was no. I even tried to remove my accomplishments and rewrite my resume to try to be considered for lower position roles.
This was a horrible time, a depressing time; I felt defeated. I am needing some way to support my family. We were down to very little money in our account, and I needed some supplemental income to get by. When my back was against the wall, I pushed through those desperate times and made something out of it.
I turned to what I knew, and that was using my camera to make some cash. This opened a new chapter in my life going from unemployed to self-employed.
DM Photography was created to provide residential and commercial photography services to real estate professionals across DFW. If I had known this was going to be successful, I would have started long ago.
Once business started rolling, I never looked back. I now have the work-life balance I always wanted to spend time with my wife and three children.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I think all business owners at one point will feel like giving up. It’s the people you have in your circle that motivate and support you to keep fighting. For me, the biggest challenge was getting exposure to potential clients. I had no experience in interior photography and had to learn everything from scratch. I mean countless hours of online videos and reading to understand the concept.
Once I built enough courage to reach out to real estate agents to offer my service, I would get a polite no. All this time I invested I was getting nowhere. Even after offering my service for free to give me the opportunity still no. I needed something to showcase my work, and that was a website. With no photoshoots, I had no pictures for a website, so I had to improvise.
Builders tend to showcase their model homes with impressive upgrades. That was my gateway to my portfolio. I approached a couple of builders to let me photograph their models, and I would turn the images to them if I can also use for my website. Problem solved so I thought. I have the pictures now but need to create a website.
Back to watching online videos to figure out how to develop and create a website to my taste in style. After many days and countless hours, my website was completed. Back to calling and emailing real estate agents to get the same answer, no thank you. After all the failed attempts, it was time to try to gain business face to face.
I created business cards to walk into brokers’ offices to get exposure to agents. Still no luck! I have been taking portrait images since 2010, and this is when the light bulb turned on. I emailed agents offering portrait services for headshots. Bingo!! I would say out of the 200+ emails I got two responses for request on needing new headshots.
While I was photographing one of the agents, who requested a headshot another walks in needing a real estate photographer. It was that agent who gave me the opportunity to shoot my very first listing. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. She opened the door to my business in so many ways.
In fact, we are currently building our very first home and guess who my agent is, her of course. My business grows organically through word of mouth and referrals and without her giving me that chance I don’t know where I would be in my career today.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the DM Photography story. Tell us more about the business.
DM Photography was created in 2014. I took a hobby of mine and tried to see if I could make something out of it. I never had the intention of creating a business it just happened. It was then I walked away from my employer and had no choice to make something out of it because it was obvious I had no income coming in. I have photographed almost everything and anything I could to improve my skills.
From newborn to family portraits I photographed it all. My business specializes in Residential and Commercial photography. We work with real estate agents across DFW photographing property listings to be sold. Every business will eventually have milestones to be remembered and achievements that makes all the hard work pay off. Every photographer would like to have their images published or to be on a billboard.
In my case, both have happened to me, even on TV! In my line of business as a real estate photographer, there is plenty of competitors that keep you on your toes. What separates me from the others is that I’m personable. I’ve been working with some of the same agents for the past four years, and friendships get developed.
Instead of showing up with a hi and bye work ethic it’s more like finishing the last conversation we had. I have to be invested in my clients just as much as they have to be invested in me. My success is rated based off my client’s success. There is no better feeling than to have the property you photographed go under contract within days of you photographing it.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I believe everything happens for a reason. For example when business is slow, and there is hardly anything scheduled for the next week I start to freak out. Luck always plays its part, and by the end of the week, listings will come out of nowhere filling my calendar for next week’s work.
My good luck outweighs the bad in my experience. Sometimes when my route is so close together, and I have a reschedule. I will have another job that calls in the same location as my rescheduled listing. Then, there is the bad luck. Anytime I have to roll back to a shoot for whatever reason its bad karma on me.
I’ve forgotten equipment on a previous job, or my battery dies on me mid shoot. I’ve even dropped my camera not once but twice breaking it in half. My lesson was defiantly learned. Now I have a backup camera for my back up camera.
One time I even dropped my laptop on concrete ground in the parking lot after picking it up from repair from Apple. I will say that is one tough machine still running like a champ. All this happened due to a rollback, so I would definitely say this is bad luck.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.danielmartinezphotography.com
- Phone: 214-578-8908
- Email: dmartinez@danielmartinezphotography.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielmartinezphotography/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danielmartinezphoto/
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