Our "Why"
Chris, Adrienne and Cyrus founded Swift Galleries in 2014 to help make in-person sales more approachable, enjoyable and profitable for wedding and portrait photographers at any level in their business.
While our features have changed and we’ve added more people to the team, our mission remains the same to this day:
We help photographers work less, make more, dream bigger and live better.
Just a few things we believe to be true.
Profit, with purpose.
We believe money is good and making more of it will only help us and our members make a bigger impact on the lives, communities and causes we love.
Defy ordinary
In life, in business and in how we define success we strive to teach our kids (and ourselves) that, just because it’s “how it’s always been done”, doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.
Suck less every day.
We don’t have to be perfect, just better than yesterday.
If it can be fun, it should be.
When it doubt, we’ll use the gif (with a hard “g” because we’re not animals). We’ll tell the dad-joke. We’ll take any moment possible to make someone’s day just a little bit brighter and to carry their load just a little further for them. We aim to surprise and delight our way through work and life.
We're only successful when you're successful.
We exist to make our members successful. If we focus solely on that, our own success is guaranteed. The day we put our profits before your success is the day we’ll close the doors.
Unreasonably focused on changing lives.
That voice that tells you that you’re too small to dream big? Too inconsequential to make a dent in the world? Yeah, we ignore that one. We are, unabashedly, in the business of changing lives; we just happen to do it with some software, some videos and a few dad jokes.
Be startlingly good.
If you haven’t been astonished by our empathy and commitment to putting your success before ours, then we haven’t served you well enough yet.
Whoever you are, you are welcome here.
Gender, race, ethnicity, orientation, ability, religion, political leanings… we’re here to listen to your story, to learn from you and to support you as you are.
Meet the team.
Whitney Carlson
As the keeper of keys at Swift Galleries, Whitney (she/her) makes sure Chris does what he’s supposed to everything is running smoothly while also providing support, encouragement and accountability to our members. She and her family live in Minneapolis, MN.
Chris & Adrienne Scott
Chris & Adrienne (he/him, she/her) live in a camper (on purpose!), traveling North America fulltime with their two kids. They’re our sales experts and handle most of our education as well as the overall direction of Swift Galleries.
Cyrus Keck
Cyrus (he/him) brings years of development knowledge and zero photography skills to the table at Swift Galleries. He, his wife and their two kids live just outside of Indianapolis, IN. In a house. Like weirdos.
Our very first print order was just shy of $6,000...
This is where I’m supposed to tell you that there were “secrets” to our success and, if you just pay me $xxxx/month, I’ll share those with you.
But that’s a load of crap.
We were absolutely clueless, just making it up as we went.
Here’s what success looked like for us, in the real world…
We bought a house, got married and officially started our wedding and portrait photography business all within the same 6 weeks or so. Oh, and I also quit my full time job.
I (Chris here… 
) never said I was smart.
Adrienne was teaching elementary music at the time and I was doing business like I was “supposed to do” as a brand new photographer. $150 gets you the session and all digitals. I’m just “paying my dues”, right?
Well, as you know, when you pay your dues, you have little left for other things like “food”. Or “bills”. Or “new wives who maybe don’t want to eat ramen like a college student”.
In October of 2008, we’d reached our breaking point.
I was sitting in my office in the back of our townhouse just outside of Nashville (that one right there 
). It was pouring outside and I’m pretty sure I was editing. Because editing.
Adrienne came into the office and said the dreaded spouse-phrase…
“We need to talk…”
Time out for some context…
At this point:
- The business was not going well.
- I was working far more hours, for far less money, than I had been at my full time job.
- Adrienne was fully supporting us, financially, with her teaching job.
- She was burned out and wanted to quit and work with me. But… see the first bullet point…
Ok, back to “we need to talk…”
I will never forget this moment for as long as I live.
Two things…
- From the start, my wife has been better than I will ever deserve.
- This absolutely wrecked me.
Here she was, already fully supporting us and rather than telling me I needed to start carrying my weight, she offered to pick up more work so I could continue to build my business…
Wrecked. Me.
So that’s the day we threw out all the “supposed to’s” and started doing business our way.
- We sat down and actually analyzed our numbers.
- We learned how to sell products instead of just the files.
Basically, we stopped “playing” business and started treating it like a real business.
It worked!
That first order I mentioned up top, that happened in February of 2009.
This is the client, Stephanie, with just one of the three wall art galleries she ordered.
(Fun fact: Stephanie is now a phenomenal photographer, herself.)
And here’s the invoice from that order.
Notice it’s Invoice #2.
I was so nervous about doing this sales meeting that I did an entire fake meeting before it, even placing the order.
Within 9 months of that sale we’d sold $116,000 in prints.
And for my fellow “gross revenue doesn’t matter, show me the profits” peeps, it’s right there on line 5.
We’d gone from “we’re not going to make it” to $92,336 in gross profit in 9 months.
To say this was “life-changing” is the understatement of all understatements.
This. Changed. Everything.
Which leads me to the point of this whole story…
Don’t get me wrong… that kind of money is awesome.
But it’s not about the money. It’s about what we were able to do with that money. The freedom it bought us. The stress it took off our shoulders. The options it gave us.
Within that same 9 months:
- We paid off more than $40,000 in debt, leaving our mortgage and my student loans as our only debt.
- Adrienne quit her job to work full time in the photography business with me.
- I got to show my parents I wasn’t an abject failure (what? That’s what we all really want out of life, isn’t it? Just to make our parents proud of us? No? Just me?).
This is the kind of "life-changing" experience we now have the privilege of helping other photographers achieve in their businesses.
And that’s really the whole point of what we do now. We wake up every morning with the sole goal of helping photographers realize their full potential.
To see their lives changed. Their debts paid off. Their jobs quit and their passions chased down with fervor.
I’d love to have the opportunity to help you do the same.
Here’s to working less, making more, dreaming bigger and living better,
Chris
Co-Founder/CEO, Swift Galleries