In this "Thankful Thursday" episode, entrepreneur Evan Carmichael highlights the importance of expressing gratitude to people who have helped you succeed. He thanks his photographer friend Bryan (Bryan) Simon of Tarsi Fix Studios for going above and beyond on his wedding. Evan explains how Bryan helped turn a standard wedding favor into a personalized baseball‑card‑style keepsake for each guest, capturing a posed JFK‑inspired front photo and candid shots on the back. The effort required Bryan to photograph every guest, design the cards, and source the materials, demonstrating exceptional customer service and creativity. Evan uses this story as a lesson for entrepreneurs: delight customers with unique, thoughtful experiences and always show appreciation. He ends with a call to action for viewers to thank someone who has impacted their business or life, and provides links to Bryan’s studio and his own newsletter.
Chapters
Welcome to another Thankful Thursday. I believe as entrepreneurs it's important to thank the people in your life who's had an impact, who've helped believe in you, because you can't do this alone, and it's nice just to every now and then reach out and say thank you, make them feel appreciated. So today I want to thank Bryan Simon, and Bryan is a photographer friend of mine here in Toronto, Ent City. He's helped me with a number of different projects. He was a photographer at my wedding. He's got a pretty new business called Tarsi Fix Studios, And I wanted to thank him because Brian always goes way above and beyond to make sure that his clients are happy. So I wanted to give a quick example, and this could be a lesson for entrepreneurs as well. So at my wedding, I wanted to give out wedding favors that weren't boring. You know, most wedding favors are super boring. It's a picture of the bride and groom in a frame, and what am I supposed to do with that? Am I supposed to put that on my mantle? Am I supposed to hang that on my wall? Am I really going to hang your wedding picture on my wall? Right? It's not gonna happen. And so what I wanted to do was make it more about the guests, make it about the people who are coming out, and give them something special that had them on it so that they could actually cherish that moment that they spent with us that day. I thought back to a photoshoot that I did just on my own with Nina. I saw this picture of JFK and his wife Jackie, and I just liked how they were sitting. I looked at Nina and said, "Nina, we gotta do something similar. Let's do something like that." And I shot the picture, and I remembered that for the wedding, 'cause I thought, hey, people coming out to this wedding, you know, they're all dressed up, they're in their suits and ties, they're in their nice dresses. How often do you get a professional photographer to take a good picture of you when you're all dressed up and looking nice? Not that often. So what I thought was, hey, let's take this JFK concept and take pictures of everybody who was coming out to the wedding, so they could have that same experience that we had. So I told Brian, Brian, I have this crazy idea, okay? I wanna make baseball cards with this posed JFK couple shot on the front, and then on the back I want to show candid shots of that guest at the wedding, at the reception, at the hall, wherever. And now this is adding a lot of stress and pressure on Bryan because usually photographers, they come out, they just shoot the bride and groom a couple extra shots, and they're following them around. Here he had to take pictures of everybody, you know, the set shot, JFK shot, as well as all these other candid shots so we can make an individualized baseball card for everybody. So this is what it looks like. This is a buddy of mine, John. Now I haven't seen John for a while, so I still have to give him his card, but this is the, the after result. So this is him and his girlfriend, and then on the back is not just pictures of us, it's pictures of him and his girlfriend, uh, that was kind of before they came, and then at the wedding, and then us all together. And so it's a nice memorable card that they can keep. We give them a little stand that they can put it up on their mantel or desk, whatever. And this is something that if I got this from somebody, I would actually keep this. Like, this is actually pretty cool. So it's a nice memory from the wedding, and that was all thanks to Bryan. Now Bryan had to take all these pictures, then he had to make the card, right? What picture is gonna go on the front? What's gonna go on the back? Then he had to source where we're gonna get the card from, and, and then my role later was putting them in the cases. So I didn't have that hard a job. But that was Bryan, right? Bryan goes above and beyond. He's never done that. He's never made baseball cards. He's never had to take pictures of everybody at a wedding. And he's like, "Yeah, let's do it. I'm on board." He's excited, 'cause he wants to wow his customers. From there, he's taken pictures of me at the beach. He's taken pictures of me for Christmas cards. He's done a lot of other stuff. And he's always gone over and over and over beyond what I expected from him. So Bryan, thank you so much. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for all the great, awesome work. And for you watching, guys, I'd like you to go and thank somebody today. Thank somebody who's had an impact on your business, impact on your life somehow. It'll make them feel great, it'll make you feel great, it'll spread good karma out there in the world. And if you guys wanna check out Brian's website, you can check it out at TarseyPix Studios. Keep believing. Thank you guys for watching. I'll see you soon. If you wanna see more great content to keep you inspired, motivated, and believing, check out my newsletter in the link below.
