Some stories are worth slowing down for, and this is one of them. 🎙️

On this episode of the podcast, I sat down with Brinna Bradshaw, a wedding, family, and couples photographer of six years who’s quietly built something so many female entrepreneurs are chasing: a business that flexes with her life instead of fighting against it. In the last few years alone, Brinna has relocated twice, launched a Lightroom preset shop, stepped into photography education, become a mom, and rebranded her entire business with a custom Showit website that finally feels like her. If you’ve ever wondered how anyone does all of that at once (spoiler: she’s still figuring it out too), this conversation, and this little case study of her branding transformation, is for you.

Grab your coffee, friend. Here’s what we talked about:

Turning “What Sets Me Apart” Into a Product

Brinna started selling her Lightroom presets about three years ago, and she’ll be honest, it scared her at first. Presets felt like giving away the secret sauce of her photography business, and she half-expected other photographers to snap them up and swipe her clients right along with them.

What actually happened was the opposite. Photographers started messaging her constantly, telling her how much the presets had changed their editing, their workflow, their confidence. Somewhere in those DMs, Brinna realized the thing she loved most wasn’t just taking the photos, it was helping other photographers grow. That’s the seed that eventually grew into her photography education offerings, and it came from a place a lot of us can relate to: wishing she’d had that kind of support when she was starting out in an industry that can feel a little closed off.

The takeaway: sometimes the “side thing” you’re nervous to launch ends up pointing you toward the next chapter of your business.

Rebuilding a Client Base Twice (In Two Different States)

Here’s where Brinna’s story gets especially real for anyone in a local, service-based business. She didn’t just move once, she relocated to Colorado, rebuilt her photography clientele from scratch, and then did it all over again in Texas.

Her honest timeline? About six months each time before things started to feel like they had real momentum again. She compared it to any big life transition, whether it’s a move, a new baby, or a new season of business: give yourself the six months before you decide how you actually feel about it.

Brinna’s two go-to strategies for relocating a local business:

1. Geo-tag your future home before you move. She started tagging her location as her new city months in advance, so people searching that area could already find her.
2. Reach out and offer trades. Before each move, she connected with local photographers and vendors and set up shoots, some free, some traded for services. It built real relationships, got her work in front of new eyes, and started the word-of-mouth snowball before she’d even unpacked a box.

If you’re facing a relocation (or just a slow season), building that kind of momentum, even in small, consistent ways, makes all the difference.

Why She Finally Invested in Branding and Web Design

For a long time, Brinna did what a lot of creatives do: she assumed that because photography is a creative field, she could DIY her own branding. She had a website a friend had put together for a few hundred dollars, and it did the job… barely.

But as she went through move after move, launched her preset shop, and grew her education offerings, she started to feel the gap between how her business actually was and how it looked online. Her words stuck with me: she wanted her business to feel like a high-end service, not a homemade one. And with so much change happening behind the scenes, her branding became the one consistent thread that followed her from Colorado to Texas, something her audience could recognize no matter where she was.

Since launching her new custom Showit website, Brinna says she now looks at it (and loves it) every single day, a big shift from actively avoiding it before. And the numbers back up the feeling: she saw a noticeable jump in both preset sales and inquiries within the first month.

Her insight here is one I think about constantly as a Showit website designer working with small businesses: it’s easier to invest in someone who clearly invests in themselves. When your website reflects the quality of what you offer, your people feel more confident saying yes, and that confidence trickles all the way down to how they experience working with you. It’s proof that professional design builds trust before a single word is exchanged.

Boosting Brand Confidence Online

If there’s one thing Brinna’s story proves, it’s that boosting brand confidence online isn’t just a feel-good phrase, it shows up in real numbers. A brand and website that finally match the quality of your work doesn’t just change how clients perceive you; it changes how you show up, too. Brinna went from avoiding her own website to opening it daily, and that shift in confidence is exactly what we aim for with every custom branding and Showit web design client at Flourish Foundry.

Becoming a Mom While Building a Business

We couldn’t talk about the last year of Brinna’s life without talking about becoming a mom, and this is where the conversation got really honest.

Brinna described her business as her “first baby,” so when she found out she was pregnant, she panicked a little, worried she’d have to set it all aside. Her first trimester was rough, and in the thick of it, she truly believed her business days were numbered. Sound familiar?

But things shifted. She scaled back bookings during pregnancy, gave herself real grace in those early newborn months, and slowly found her rhythm again, right around the six-month mark. (Noticing a pattern? Big changes, whether it’s a move or a baby, seem to take about six months to settle.)

What she shared about her daily rhythm now, at nine months postpartum, is genuinely so helpful:

• Mornings are for movement and connection (a workout, a walk), while her daughter plays independently.
• Naptime is protected, focused work time, and she’s learned that even 20 focused minutes can move the needle.
• Her daughter’s schedule flexes around her work, not the other way around, and that flexibility has become one of the biggest gifts of running her own business.

On “Mom Guilt” (And Why She’s Rethinking It)

This might be my favorite part of the whole conversation. Brinna pushed back gently on the idea of “mom guilt” as something we just have to accept. Her perspective: constantly feeling guilty for working doesn’t actually serve her daughter or herself. Instead, she reframed it, she wants her daughter to grow up watching her build something, work hard, and have an identity and outlet outside of motherhood.

We talked about how past generations of moms didn’t seem to carry the same pressure to be endlessly, entirely present, and how today’s “third option” (working from home while raising your kids) can feel like the best of both worlds while still asking for real sacrifice and trade-offs. There’s no perfect answer here, just permission to let go of guilt that isn’t actually helping anyone.

Connect With Brinna

If this conversation resonated with you, whether you’re rebuilding a business after a move, thinking about branching into education, or navigating motherhood alongside entrepreneurship, go give Brinna a follow. You can find her on Instagram and TikTok, and be sure to check out her beautifully rebranded website (we may be a little biased, but it really is gorgeous 😊).

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Flourish Foundry Designs is a branding and web design studio based in Lakeland, FL, helping female entrepreneurs and service-based business owners like Brinna build Showit websites that feel as good as they look. If you’re ready for your own branding transformation, let’s chat.