Mandy Liz | Mandy Liz Photography
Founder of Mandy Liz Photography
Mandy Liz is the founder of Mandy Liz Photography, a lifestyle personal branding photographer and digital marketing consultant based in Nashville, TN.
What businesses do you run?
Mandy Liz is a multi-faceted entrepreneur, running a successful brand photography business alongside several other ventures. In addition to her photography work, she’s a podcaster, educator, and digital shop owner, offering a range of services and products that help other entrepreneurs and creatives grow their own businesses. While photography has been the consistent core of her business over the last decade, Mandy has expanded her offerings to include education, passive income streams, and digital resources. Her ability to pivot and evolve over the years has allowed her to create a dynamic and sustainable business.
How did you get started as an entrepreneur?
Mandy's journey into entrepreneurship wasn't something she planned—it happened organically. Ten years ago, she received a camera as a Christmas gift and began exploring photography as a hobby. Initially, she had no intention of turning it into a business. But as she practiced and refined her skills, she started monetizing the hobby. Slowly but surely, her side hustle began to generate more income than her full-time corporate job. Four years into the hobby, she found herself at a crossroads: stay on the corporate ladder or dive fully into entrepreneurship. Mandy made the bold decision to quit her job and pursue photography full-time. It wasn’t an overnight success; it was a slow grind, but her dedication to building her business gradually transformed her passion into a thriving career.
How do you think about growth in your current business? How do you plan for the future?
For Mandy, growth as an entrepreneur goes far beyond increasing revenue or expanding her client base. Of course, those milestones are important, but what matters most is building a business that can adapt to all the stages of her life. Flexibility has been a key factor in her success. In an unpredictable world—where markets fluctuate, pandemics happen, and external factors are beyond control—Mandy has learned to focus on what she can control: herself, her team, her services, and her personal brand. When the market shifts, she pivots. She’s continually thinking outside the box to adjust her offerings and ensure her business remains resilient. To her, growth means sustainability—being able to adjust and evolve no matter what external challenges come her way.
What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs?
Mandy’s advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is simple: just start. Don’t let excuses or fear hold you back from launching your business or bringing your product or service to life. There will always be reasons to wait, but the only way to truly get started is to take that first step. The path to success is often filled with trial and error, and there will be moments of uncertainty. But if you commit to the journey and allow yourself to learn along the way, you'll build something incredible. Flexibility and perseverance are key, and by staying true to your passion, you can navigate whatever challenges come your way.
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Mandy Liz 0:00
Hi, I'm Mandy Liz. I'm a brand photographer, a podcaster, educator and digital shop owner. I have been doing photography for 10 years, but I went full time five years ago, and my business has looked so different throughout the years, but the main consistency has been photography, I feel like a lot of other business owners, I had no intentions of starting a business. That happened accidentally. I got a camera for Christmas one year, and then realized that that was a passion I had, that was a gift I had, but I was working a full time job. I had no intentions of taking that camera and turning it into a business just slowly, as you are tapping into a hobby, you start monetizing it, and then that suddenly was something that it got to the point where it was surpassing my full time job income. So I kind of had to decide, am I going to stay on this corporate ladder trying to, you know, further this career, or am I going to do something for myself and dive into this? And I went ahead and decided to quit my job, and that was about four years into having it as a hobby. So it's a slow grind. It's not something that happens overnight, but just taking the time to grow that side hustle, I put enough time and investment into it that I was able to become my full time job. So I have now been a full time business owner for five years, I just celebrated five years this week, and that, to me, is just so important to be able to celebrate that milestone and remember that milestone, because 10 years ago, when I started with my camera, I never expected to be able to have a business that I have today, and to see so many different stages of this business And to see it go from just photography into education and digital shop sales and passive income and podcasting in so many different streams that I never would have envisioned when I first got that camera 10 years ago. I feel like running a business is a lot of trial and error. I it took years to discover my brand, and I do feel like now I have an established brand, I have a personal brand, all of that, but it goes way beyond just like branding and the logo and all of that is really is at the core, just trying to figure out, what am I good at? What am i How can I serve people? What are the gifts that I have, and what makes me stand out, what makes me different from the competition. When you're running a business, there's a lot of planning that you have to do and a lot of strategizing that you have to have to know how to grow your business. When I think about growth as an entrepreneur, for me, it obviously there's you want to keep growing your revenue, you want to keep growing your clientele, you want to keep growing your team. There's all these different milestones or things that you can hit and check the box and make sure that you're on the right track. But aside from that, growth for me is having a business that is sustainable through all the different stages of my life. We can't predict a market, we can't predict a pandemic. We can't we're not in control of the outside factors. I can only control the internal factors of my business, and that's going to be me, that's going to be my team, that's going to be the services and the products that we offer, that's going to be my personal brand, my presence, all of that I cannot control how an external market market, how an external market reacts to my business. So flexibility is huge. When you're running a business, you have to be flexible, and you have to be able to pivot, think outside the box and find ways to shift your offers, find ways to shift your business when those external factors hit and you and you have to just find ways to be flexible and flow with that. Otherwise you're never going to get to where you want to be in five years time. If you're inspiring to be an entrepreneur, my advice to you would be to just start, start the business, launch the product or service, and just do it. Don't keep putting out excuses. Just do it.
