March 12, 2025 • 49 mins
In this episode, I sit down with Jill Smith, a seasoned family photographer and business mentor, to talk about the psychology of pricing, how to shift your mindset, and the strategies that make mini sessions profitable.
Jill shares her personal journey from charging $50 per session to scaling a thriving, profitable photography business. We dive into why so many photographers struggle with pricing due to people-pleasing tendencies, fear of judgment, and unconscious money programming.
Plus, we talk about why your mini sessions might be draining your time and energy—and how to fix that.
Want to stop running your business like a hobby and finally price for profit?
2:16 Fear and Mental Blocks Around Pricing
5:51 Jill's Pricing Evolution Journey
12:21 Aligning Pricing with Business Goals
22:41 Profitable Mini Sessions Strategy
31:17 Building a Strong Brand Identity
42:25 ADHD and Creative Entrepreneurship
47:18 Key Takeaways and Final Thoughts
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Tried and True with the Dash of Woo, where
we blend rock solid tips with alittle bit of magic.
I'm Renee Bowen, your host,life and business coach and
professional photographer atyour service.
We are all about gettingcreative, diving into your
business and playing withmanifestation over here.
So are you ready to getinspired and have some fun?
Let's dive in.
Hey friends, welcome back toTried and True with a Dash of
(00:27):
Woo.
I'm your host, renee Bowen.
Thank you again for being hereToday.
I have a fellow photographer andeducator on the podcast.
She's awesome.
You're going to love her.
If you don't know her already,jill Smith is a seasoned family
photographer and businessstrategist with over 11 years of
experience in the photographyindustry, and she built a highly
profitable and sustainablebusiness we love that by
(00:49):
blending strategic pricing,streamlined marketing and an
exceptional client experience.
So now she also mentors otherphotographers looking to scale
their businesses, and we talkedtoday all about pricing and
burnout and creativity and minisessions and how to make them
profitable.
We kind of dance around thispricing thing a lot, but there's
(01:13):
a lot of psychology that goesinto that and I feel like a lot
of you guys who listen are kindof in that place where you're
not necessarily super low pricedbut you're not luxury priced
and you're not sure if youshould be, and there's maybe a
lot of noise.
We also talk aboutneurodiversity and how that
comes into play with all of thisand how to navigate all of that
.
It's a good one.
(01:33):
So you guys are in for a treatand I know you're going to love
Jill, if you don't know heralready.
So we're just going to diveright in.
Hey, jill, thanks so much forbeing here.
I have a lot of questions aboutpricing because I mean, as you
know, like we both, we both talkabout this a lot.
We both talk about theimportance of it and also the
issues that a lot ofphotographers have when it comes
(01:53):
to pricing.
So I'm really curious becauseyou're on the East coast, I'm
way over here on the West coastI want to kind of just like dive
right into this pricing thing,cause it comes up for me a lot
in my coaching and I know thatyou talk about it a lot on
social and everywhere else.
Let's just go right there.
What are some of the commonfears and mental blocks that you
(02:15):
see photographers facing whenit comes to raising their prices
?
Because I hear a lot well,what's going to happen to my
current pricing?
I mean my current?
You know clients at thispricing, right?
So like that fear of losing thepeople that you had.
So what are some of the thingsthat you see come up and what is
your?
What is your advice for dealingwith?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
that essentially.
I don't think it's necessarily.
I think if people reallydistilled what they were feeling
down, I don't think that it'sthat they are so worried that
they won't find new clients withtheir new prices.
I think so much of it has to dowith this insecurity that we
(02:59):
have around losing our currentclients and fear of judgment,
and it's all entangled in humannature.
But because we are it, we arealmost all exclusively
solopreneurs, like mostphotographers are not part of a
really large team with somebodyin corporate making setting
their prices right.
So we are it.
(03:21):
We are the ones responsible forthat and we know that.
Our clients know that, so thatwhen we set our price, we are
putting it out there like thisis what I cost and it's my
decision.
And another piece is that mostof us are women and we're people
pleasers and we are caretakersand we want to take care of
everybody.
Everybody deserves photos,right, all that narrative to
(03:46):
take care of everybody.
Everybody deserves photos,right, all that narrative.
So we really worry aboutoffending people too and not
being able to provide this thingthat we think is not a luxury,
and forgetting that there arephotographers at other price
points that can accommodatethose folks who have a smaller
budget.
But yeah, I think when youbreak it down, it comes to fear.
(04:08):
It comes down to fear ofrejection.
A lot of imposter syndrome isin there.
Geez, there's.
There's so many factors that Ithink are at play here.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
You really hit the nail on the head, though, right
there.
I think too, like the femalepeople pleasing aspect of it, I
see that all the time.
I mean it's not justexclusively to women, I will say
that, but you know it is.
It's very common for femalesolopreneurs and, like you said,
we're wearing all the hats,we're doing all the things, and
(04:39):
so the pressure all falls on usand that just triggers all kinds
of unconscious programming thatwe all have in various ways,
some more than others, and eventhose of us I talk about this a
lot too.
I didn't even think I had awhole lot of that, but when I
was faced with like oh, when Ireally took a look at those
(05:02):
numbers years ago and realizedhow much I I really did need to
up my pricing and what it reallyshould be at, it triggered all
kinds of things.
So I think that that is areally big factor too.
One of the things I see a lotof women do specifically is that
they just don't look at thosenumbers because they're like, oh
, we're just going to just keepdoing this because it's
(05:23):
triggering.
So look at those numbers, butwhen you do it, that's that
factor that goes.
Okay, I got to get real withmyself now.
Now I know, and I can't go backto not knowing that I really
need to be charging this forthese albums or whatever it is,
if I want to be profitable, andwhat am I going to do about that
(05:44):
?
If I want to be profitable, andwhat am I going to do about
that?
So, yeah, I mean for yourself,what was that journey like for
you?
Right, we all have our storiesof you know fell into this and I
wasn't a business person and Ihad to figure it out.
What's your story coming tothat moment?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
So I want to.
I just want, before I answerthat, I want to acknowledge
something that you said.
Where it's like you can get,you can really bury your head
really deep in the sand aboutyour prices and just ignore them
because nobody's going to takeyour camera away Once.
Once you have your camera, youare in business, right, and it
is really easy to ignore or notacknowledge that you are losing
(06:25):
money, especially when it's aside hustle and you have a
normal and this is like this isjust for fun, this is my fun and
where it's like, oh, actuallyI'm losing money now, but but
yeah, for me.
I started out like mostphotographers.
You know 94% of us do not havedegrees in it, in this.
You know 94% of us do not havedegrees in this right, so I am
(06:45):
part of that 94% and I left mycareer in teaching.
I moved to a new area.
I was an ESL teacher.
Where I live now doesn't reallyhave that population, so I had
to figure something else out.
Anyway, started this because Ithought if other people can do
it, why can't I?
And, of course, started out at$50 because I think that's a
(07:07):
real, real start.
And then, when I got to, Irealized I needed to raise my
price.
I went to $100, which felt huge.
And you do this compensatorything where you start adding
like two 4x6s and an 8x10.
And this when you start toraise your four by sixes and an
eight by 10.
And this when you start toraise your prices because you
(07:27):
need to feel like you need atangible value in to go along
with your, your price increase.
And that's why I talk a lotabout increasing your, your
value, without increasingoverhead, and that's a whole
other thing.
But so then I did that, andthen I went to 185.
And then I was like gettingburnt out as I would, and then
it was to 399, because 400 wouldbe too much right, and 400 in
(07:53):
were felt to me like oh and thisis, or 399 felt like this is
where I'm going to max out, I'mgoing to stay here.
Going to stay here, and I wasattracting a new type of client
at $399, but was overbooked andburnt out.
And then I did my taxes thatyear and I think I had netted
(08:16):
$5,000 and I had worked my buttoff.
Can I curse on here?
Yeah, you can.
Okay, I worked my ass off, andso that was when I was like,
okay, well, I need to raise myprices significantly more.
I actually crunched the numbersthat year and you know, I think
what helped was that I took ona really big piece of overhead
(08:39):
that year as I started renting astudio, and so there was an
expense I could not ignore.
Year is I started renting astudio, and so there was an
expense I could not ignore.
You know, my camera was notcosting me money every month and
I was still editing with freeediting software.
So I actually it was during the.
It was when the Adobe suite wassomething you just spent like
$1,500 on once and then you hadit, so that was already paid for
(09:00):
.
There were no ongoing expensesbeing incurred until I got the
studio.
And then I was like, beforethere were no ongoing expenses
being incurred until I got thestudio.
And then I was like, okay, Ineed to be serious about this.
And I saw 800 was where Ineeded to go, so, once again
doubling my prices.
What I did, though, was prettystrategic and I didn't realize
(09:24):
it at the time was, instead ofdoing that, I moved to a session
fee model, so a session feepackage model, so it was like
$200 session fee and thenmultiple digital packages that
would eventually get me to $800.
And it enabled me to see thedata.
What are people actuallywilling to spend?
Are my clients willing to spend$800?
And they were, so thatemboldened me to then go to $800
and then to 950.
(09:45):
And then, right now, I'm at1200.
So, but that took 10 or 11years.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, no, I had something you know, kind of
similar and it, you're right,like I mean, most of this are
self-taught.
We sort of fall into it, youknow.
I mean it was something I haddone for a long time and never
thought it was something I coulddo and make money at it.
It was just like a hobby and Ithink that you know, I see a lot
of that.
You know, by the time people docome to me in coaching, they're
usually trying to get out ofthat.
(10:15):
They're in that gray zone, thatmiddle area of what.
You know you're not super cheapbut you're definitely not
considered luxury, right, andlike it feels too scary to do
that.
But you know, to be sustainableyou do need to raise that.
And it's such a hard thing todo on your own sometimes because
you do feel like you'reisolated and like how am I, how
(10:36):
can I do this, especially if youdon't have a lot of natural
business?
You know, with most, most of usdon't, most of us are creatives
, you know, and so we have tosort of figure that part out as
we go.
There's a rare group of peoplewho are both, but you know, it's
definitely not the norm fromwhat I see it's a really hard
(10:59):
thing to come to, like it's likeyou really do have to have that
come to Jesus moment withyourself, like you said, like
with taxes or when you're reallyfaced with those numbers, and
it's like, okay, well, what do Ido now?
How do I make this work?
The big part of that, too, is Ialways tell people like yes,
it's a strategy, we do need tocome up with what works for you,
(11:20):
because I'm a big believer inthat.
It is not one size fits all.
What works for me here in mymarket and my target client.
The basic strategy of that isyou can duplicate that, but we
need to make that reallyintentional with your region,
your clients and also how youwant to run your business.
(11:44):
That is a really big factor, andsomething I see a lot of
creatives deal with is notreally knowing what that is,
because they're inundated by allof this noise of what they
think they should have, whatthey think they should be doing,
and so that's a really big, Ithink factor in all of this is,
(12:05):
like you know, quieting thenoise around us enough to like
really focus on what do I reallywant this business to look like
?
Do I want to be high volume.
Do I want to be luxury, likewhat?
What feels good to you insteadof comparing yourself constantly
to other people and thatgetting into that trap of you
(12:25):
know feeling like you have toconstantly be playing that game.
So when you're working withphotographers and just in
general, in your own pricing,you know setting that.
You know what do you tellpeople about aligning their
pricing with their long-termbusiness goals?
Like is that I've seen you talkabout the importance of that,
but how do you address it foryourself and in your communities
(12:49):
?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah, I totally agree with you.
There is so much noise and it'sfunny how most photographers
will pay attention to the, buteverybody else in my area is
$100 million like that sort ofmindset.
You got to know how to run abasic cost of doing business,
right?
So you need to know what thatis and then what your time is
(13:12):
worth to you.
And I think that there's atipping point and I'm sure that
you have tipped the scalealready in your business where
your time becomes your currency,not the dollar, right?
So your time is so much morefinite and you can you already
know now okay, I can, I can buyback some time, I can buy back
other things, but I and I canmake more money, but I can't get
(13:35):
I can't get more time in my day.
So you get to that point, butuntil you are at that tipping
point, the way I tell the peoplethat I coach and mentor is like
you got to do shitty things fora while and I haven't figured
out a way to fast track through.
(13:56):
That is not being as profitableas you want to be, Because,
aside from needing to stay inbusiness by having profitable
pricing, you also need to havethe trust of your market and the
(14:16):
reputation, and there's just noway to rush that.
So you get there and I have alot of different strategies for
raising your prices slowly,comfortably, because it has to
be comfortable for you too.
And then, yeah, what is yourvision?
Because there is not one way todo it.
There used to be the narrativethat like, yes, IPS was it.
(14:38):
It had to be luxury, why wouldyou?
But that's not it.
You can be a volume, you canrun a business with a volume
model, you can be mid-range, butyou need to figure out what's
the trade-off.
So if you want to be mid-rangewhich I agree, that's like the
majority of the people I workwith are mid-range, which is a
difficult place to bait.
It's a really swollen part ofthe market, isn't it?
(14:59):
So if you want to be that, thenwhat's the trade-off?
How are you going to make thismore efficient for yourself?
What are you going to outsource?
You need to make sure that youroverhead is low enough to
sustain you at this mid-rangeprice point, because maybe those
are the people you love to workwith.
There's no shame in that, butit has, like you're saying, it
has to be strategic.
(15:19):
There has to be intention whenyou are setting these prices and
math a lot of math.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
There has to be intention when you are setting
these prices and math, a lot ofmath, absolutely no, it
definitely has to be.
The math part is usually kindof what trips people up to.
I feel like such a big piece ofit.
I mean, I, I definitely wasthat kid who was triggered by
math.
I was always told that I wasbad at it.
Like it goes back, I think thatwhat they did to us in school
like honestly, honestly, likeseriously, it's a crime.
(15:45):
Um, we weren't bad at math, wejust weren't being taught the
right way.
Like all of us, creative, spicybrains or whatever, like I'll
learn differently, you know, andyou know with my psychology
training and then, like you know, nlp training that I went
through.
Like we all have our own way ofaccessing information and not,
(16:06):
yeah, most of us are probablysomewhat visual because we're
artists, but a lot of us arekinesthetic learners and so
having a kid with special needsreally was like my.
You know, it shined a brightlight on that for me, and I see
it a lot in coaching and just inour communities as well, where
(16:27):
you're taught a certain way ofjust anything and it's like it's
just not sticking.
It's not sticking, and so thatdoes go along with what we're
talking about, too, of, like,what works for you, what what's
going to really work for you,because it's true, like you know
, we can give you the roadmap,we can give you this strategy
that worked for us and it may ormay not stick for you.
What matters is, you know, areyou able, is your nervous system
(16:51):
going to be able to hold thatas well?
Like, do you have some pasttriggers with money that you
haven't dealt with?
Cause, most of us are workingfrom our past.
You know, we're working fromwhat we were told about it,
whether it was like caregivers,parents telling us that it was
hard to make you needed to workreally hard.
Whatever it is, we have our ownstory, and we tend to put that
(17:11):
on our clients as well.
We tend to assume they're goingto have that same map of the
world and perspective as we do,and we don't, and that is a very
, very big piece of it is youknow, okay, let's figure out,
like, like you said, do you wantto stay in this mid range?
Well, okay, how can you do thatprofitably?
Then, like, and and also withyour time, because I'm going to
(17:33):
tell you, like, my time is.
My time is the most valuablething, and I was building this
business with three kids underthe age of two, one with special
needs.
I I did not have time to doin-person consults.
I did not have time to do allthese things that we're going to
like lead into this experienceto, you know, add value to this
(17:58):
experience that I was chargingfor.
So how could I?
I had to get really creativeabout how am I going to do that
on my terms that works for meand my family and unfortunately,
I think what happens a lot isthat photographers just don't
take that into consideration andthey just go ahead and just do.
They just lay themselves on thetable.
Get back to that people pleasingthing that we were talking
(18:18):
about before of.
Well, let me just do everythingfor everybody else.
You know, I see I see peopleonline all the time talking
about how they feel guilty aboutsending voice.
Are they like they're leavingthis session?
I saw a really funny reel abouta photographer being like you
know laugh and like there werethousands of comments on this
reel about this you knowphotographer saying that she
(18:40):
felt so guilty sending theinvoice for, like, the
engagement session or whateverit was after she had spent hours
with this couple.
It's like, you guys, you gotta,we gotta, work on that.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the the guilt it is.
It is so much um having to dowith our, our programming
surrounding money and everything.
Uh, because, um, there, ifthere's one thing that I've
learned is that my relationshipwith money is not my client's
relationship with money and thethe other thing is that, um, I
(19:15):
don't, I don't assume any.
I don't assume that somebodywho pulls up in a Lexus is going
to be more willing to pay methan somebody who pulls up in
like a Dodge Neon.
So, because I actually havethese clients who I know are
working minimum wage jobs thathire me at full price, and then
(19:38):
I have people who have way moremoney, or at least seem to that
nickel and dime me.
So I put all of those pretensesaside now and it's just like
plain and simple.
Here's what it is.
This is what it costs to workwith me.
I do have options that I calllike my back pocket offers and
my foot in the door offers,because I appreciate the
(20:02):
trepidation around spending alot of money on a service when
you haven't done it before withthat person.
So I will do pop-ups.
I very much have the mentalityof the like boots to the ground
marketing that I did early in mybusiness still has a place in
my marketing scheme now.
It actually is a really bigpiece of my marketing and
(20:26):
networking.
So I will still do street fairswhere I have a portrait pop up
and that doesn't compare tohaving a full family session
with me, but it gives people ataste of what it's like to work
with me.
They meet me, which is huge.
It is so big to be able to getphysically in front of of a
prospect.
So, yeah, sorry, I'm tangentingout as I will.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
No, that's important, that's a big piece of it though
, because a lot of people feellike I feel like a lot of
photographers are sort of like,have the mindset of that they're
working.
Okay, if I, if I do all thishard work now, then I can just
relax and not have to do as muchmarketing later.
That's just not the reality.
It's like and that's a reallygood point bring up, because
(21:14):
unfortunately the marketingnever stops that doesn't mean
you have to kill yourself doingit 24 seven.
There are things you know thatyou can do to get more efficient
.
You know their systems andprocesses and all kinds of
automations, et cetera, that youknow ideally, you want to
implement so that you aren't onthe hook for your marketing all
(21:36):
the time.
But it doesn't replace beingphysically, especially when
we're talking about a higher endservice.
It doesn't replace beingphysically in your market.
Social media is not areplacement for that, even SEO.
I think all those things needto work together.
Your SEO strategy, yourin-person marketing, your word
of mouth and that social mediapiece those all need to work
together.
As your SEO strategy, yourin-person marketing, your word
(21:57):
of mouth and you know thatsocial media piece, those all
need to work seamlessly togetherand, ideally, when they are
working together.
You don't feel like you'reconstantly.
You know marketing per se, butyou I see a lot of photographers
kind of forget about that pieceof it.
They feel like, oh, if I justget to this place, but if you
just kind of understand that, ifI just get to this place, but
(22:18):
if you just kind of understandthat, no, I just need to create
a better system for me and mylife and how I want this to look
.
And you can.
You definitely can, butsometimes it is trial and error.
Sometimes you have toexperiment with some things and
sometimes you have to do somethings that you're like, yep,
that's absolutely no, like Iwill, that's, that's something
that I, that's something that Idon't want to continue doing.
(22:39):
But there is no replacement forreally continuing to have that
foothold in your local market.
So, those back pocket offers,those other things that you have
, and I want to dive into alittle bit of that, because one
of the things that you talkabout a lot is this profitable
mini session, because manysessions in our industry gets a
(23:00):
very bad rap and a lot ofphotographers are like I hate
them, you know, like I just, andthey hate them because they're
on the hook for very littlemoney and spending too much time
, whether it's with editing orthe whole process or whatever,
and they haven't figured out howto make that profitable.
So you know how?
(23:21):
How have you turned thatperception on its head?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
So what is more, um, more of the mechanism that the
mini sessions serve me is theway that I model them, and that
is as a and I think all minisessions should be this way.
But I don't think they are.
I think many photographers sellmini sessions as one-off
30-minute sessions and that isjust, of course.
(23:46):
You don't like it.
So I do mine 15 or 20 minutesback-to-back at the same
location one weekend, that's it,and I'll do like six in the
night.
For me, at this stage of mybusiness, they are priced at
$400.
And you get a voucher for fivedigitals, for the five digital
package, but of course there'sother digital packages and you
(24:06):
can use that voucher to redeem abigger one.
And, without fail, more thanhalf of my clients buy the whole
package, which ends up being$800 total that I gross on the
mini session in 15 or 20 minutesand only 5% don't upgrade at
(24:28):
all.
So everybody else is somewherein between and this is very
profitable.
Profitable.
It normally ends up beingaround 400 to $500 an hour when
I factor in the onboarding of it.
You know the marketing and allthat stuff, which is easy
because it's a mini session.
There's not a whole lot of.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah, and you're duplicating it each time you do
it.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, yeah, it's yes.
And then the editing, thecalling in, the editing is also
super efficient.
Thank you AI.
So it all gets done veryquickly and then I get that
money and it's a quick hit forthem, it's a quick hit for me.
I see it as a win-win.
But I use the same model formodel, calls micro sessions,
(25:11):
like my pop-ups, anything likethat I like.
I think consumers do well, or Iguess we do well when our
consumers have a coupon you know, and they think about it as
this money that they have tospend.
The $400 that they gave me islong gone.
You know that's that was a longtime ago that they they paid
(25:34):
that to me and if they areanything like me as buyers, like
sure, what's another $400?
I'll get the rest of the photosnow.
But what this does is thatafter a family books me for a
mini session for a few years,they start to see like all right
, for another $400, I could haveway more control over how this
(25:55):
session looks and where it isand how long it is and who's
involved and how my dog it couldbe in my house.
All that and then peoplegraduate to my full sessions,
because I hear a lot ofeducators say that many session
clients are not the same assession clients.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, I wanted to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
That's not.
That is, people are provingthat to be wrong in my business
all the time.
Um, I think if you do itcorrectly and you make them way
more profitable for you, um,then it becomes a no brainer
eventually for that person tothen go in and invest in your
main offer.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, I agree, I agree with that.
Um, and let me just also askyou when you're doing these
minis?
Like you said, it's just thatweekend and this is not like all
the time, correct?
No, once a year.
Now they're once a year.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
They don't get advertised, they only go to my
email list.
In fact now they only go to asegment of my email list.
I have associates who one ofthem loves to do many sessions,
so she does several rounds ofmini sessions during the year
that we will advertise, but mymini sessions are only for past
mini session clients and they goout to that segment of my email
list for booking and then theybook up and in fact last year I
(27:09):
did one day of them because thatlist is getting smaller and
it's just becoming a part ofthis ladder to get people to
invest with me for a fullsession.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yeah Well, there's a couple of things there too,
right?
So that's how I Same with me.
If I'm going to do them, it'sgoing to be just once a year.
It's very limited.
It's 15, 20 minutes back toback.
Same sort of idea, same sort ofstructure, Back to that.
Same sort of idea.
Same sort of structure, samesort of buy-in, Exactly, Almost
exactly that, with that pricingas well.
(27:42):
And it's very easy for me toget my mini session clients to
invest another six, eight, wellover a thousand sometimes as
well.
It's not uncommon for me tosell albums to my mini session
clients.
So you know, I would agree thatit is not always a different
client Sometimes it is,sometimes like there have been
(28:06):
cases, but it's rare for mebecause of the way that it's
modeled and I think that it alsodepends, like you said, on like
at this place of your businessand how long you've been in
business and the fact that youdo email your clients and you
have that relationship.
That's a factor as well, Likethat kind of marketing is
important with this.
So I want to kind of bring thatinto it a little bit, like the
(28:27):
branding part of it, like thebuilding this brand to sustain
this kind of like.
You can turn this on and offwhen you want to.
You can project like okay, youknow what A really great idea is
to do a promo in early summerfor families, especially because
, let's face it, holidays getreally busy.
Why not just knock this out inthe early summer if you wanted
(28:48):
to, instead of even doing itright before the holidays?
You could earn that on in yourbusiness if you want to earn
that on in your business if youwant to and that would you know.
For for my audience especially,like I have a lot of senior
photographers who listen youknow, late May, early June tends
to be like you want to getthose clients in and it's hard
to get those clients in.
(29:13):
You could, you could do a little, you could do a little modified
mini thing too, you know.
And so it just takes somecreative thinking about how and
strategic thinking about how youwant to get that done with the
branding part of it.
So as you're building, let'ssay, someone who is listening is
sort of still in that model oftrying to build this photography
(29:33):
business.
Maybe they're in the mid rangealready and they're kind of
wanting to get out of it.
They don't see a way out of itand they feel like minis are
like a quick hit.
What are some of the thingsthat that photographer can be
doing now to build into thiskind of model that we've been
talking about, where, yes, youcan go into luxury, you can do
(29:54):
IPS or you can do a modified IPSthing, or you can turn on some
minis?
What would you say is one ofthe biggest factors, or maybe a
handful of factors thatphotographers need to be
thinking about as they'rebuilding this brand?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
As far as including mini sessions in their brand or
like well, yes, or the brandthey aspire to be.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Right, like so, basically, as they build the
kind of brand that they want towork to, that's, a little bit
more luxury, and yet still beable to infuse it with pop-ups,
like mini sessions or pop-upsessions or model calls, things
like that.
Like how you were talking abouthow some we hear a lot about
how there's a disconnect, okay,of that like you're talking to
(30:38):
two different clients.
Well, if that's not true, right, when we've both seen proof of
that in our business, what aresome of the factors in their
marketing and branding they needto be thinking about?
I guess it's probably a betterway to ask that question.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Well, like where are you finding your clients Are?
Are they aligned?
A better way to ask thatquestion yeah Well, where are
you finding your clients?
Are they aligned?
Are they aligned?
So I think finding alignedpeople is the most important
factor, and I don't subscribe tothe client avatar thing,
because I have so many peoplethat I love working with, who
(31:15):
love to work with me, who are abig part of growing my business,
who are so different, so Ican't compartmentalize them.
But finding aligned clients whoappreciate you, who don't come
in with their Pinterest boardsright and try to micromanage
because that is what happensinevitably when you're
inexpensive is people see you asa hired gun and they're like I
(31:38):
can just get this kid with acamera and they're going to do
whatever I tell them.
I'm going to show up withChristmas lights to wrap my kid
around for a big shot and thingsthat probably aren't on brand
for you.
So finding these alignedclients is the most important
thing, and figuring out how tospot them and how to communicate
to them.
Being consistent in yourportfolio and your online
(32:01):
portfolio is huge, and I don'tthink that there's one style of
photography that is morehigh-end than the other, but I
think the act of beingconsistent is high-end being
consistent and predictable,ignoring the trends when they
come along and you get bright,shiny object syndrome and you're
like I want to try that.
I want to change this, I want todo this, I want to do this.
Try to just, even if you'regetting bored, try to keep doing
(32:24):
the thing that you're doingbecause, being consistent and
predictable, you're just goingto keep getting better and
better and better and better atwhat you do and, when the time
comes, niche down.
Early photographers are goingto get this advice that they
(32:47):
need to niche, but you can'tniche until you know what you
really want to be doing, whatyou're really good at and what
your market needs.
Graduate with you as yourbusiness grows, instead of these
people who you think you haveto treat as legacy clients, who
get your original pricing andthen you resent seeing every
year when they book you duringthe busy season.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah, no, for sure.
I think that resonance isreally key, finding those
aligned clients, and so, yeah, Iwould agree that it starts.
It starts with the most youthat you can be and you know,
the more that you double down onthat and and are intentional
(33:25):
with, instead of trying to tryon all these different things.
Like you said, the consistencyof your brand is very, very
important, but you kind of dohave to start with well, what is
that?
And a lot of people don't know,and so that's kind of that
disjoint, that's that problem,See a lot of photographers
dealing with initially, and then, yeah, from there, like you
(33:47):
said, you know, I would agreethat our clients can be varied,
for sure, even within a niche.
Yeah, I've got, I've got peoplewho spend well over six or
$7,000 on a senior portraitexperience and they're not
necessarily what you wouldstereotypically call super
wealthy, and those clients arevery different from me as well.
(34:08):
They're not always superaligned with who I am.
However, there is a resonance,whether it, whether it's like
with my vibe, my work, your work, definitely as photographers,
is going to be the thing thatinitially will attract that, you
know.
But I always kind of use thatexample of, like it's kind of
people.
People do get a little hung upon the client avatar and I do
(34:32):
think it's important in someniches more than others.
In seniors, I feel like it's alittle more important because
our teen clients are very trendyand so, as a senior
photographer, we do need to knowwhat those trends are, not so
that we can change our style,but we do need to be aware of
what our client wants, needs andis craving, so that we can
(34:56):
decide whether we want to meetthem where they are, or an
experiment or not, while stillkeeping our brand very
consistent and our messaging.
But if you know that from theget-go, that golden thread is
just going to be there anywayand you can kind of play and be
creative and things like that.
But just because you'remarketing to this client avatar
too, it doesn't mean you're notgoing to attract other people.
(35:17):
You know I talk about this alot.
I don't have a baby anywhere onmy website, but I still get
inquiries for babies Like whywould you ask me to photograph
your baby Please?
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
When your brand is strong, when your messaging is
strong and you have that goodresonance, people are going to
just assume that, oh well, Ilove your work or I love
something about you.
Will you shoot this, you know,and it's like I'm going to refer
you to somebody?
Awesome, I am not going to dothat.
Or you can decide if you wantto.
Right.
Right, that's up to you.
Yes, but all that to say whenyou're talking to you know your
(35:54):
client in that way, it doesn'tmean you're only talking to that
one person.
Like you said, you are going toattract these other people and
I think, like you said, it goesback to having that strong brand
consistency across everything,and that really will carry you
really really far.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
I think yeah, because people who are looking to spend
thousand plus dollars aren'tgoing to just go to anybody.
They're gonna go to somebodywho they really love and they're
not going to really love you,your work, if they scroll back a
couple of weeks and you weredoing something totally
different.
So that is where I think it'sso boring.
(36:37):
But I think that's where themagic happens for people who
stay in business is just beingconsistent.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Yeah, exactly no, I agree.
And so, like I think that's forthose of you guys listening, I
think that's a really bigtakeaway from this, and I know
that it can feel confusing, likeyou know, when, when you like
consistency, that could be a bigumbrella, let's say Right.
So, like you said, it can feelboring and, as creatives and
(37:03):
photographers, I think a lot ofus have that.
Like you said, this bright,shiny I always call it bright
shiny object syndrome.
Like you want to try this, youwant to try that A lot of this
comes down to like your own,your own personal boundaries and
not allowing yourself to getsucked into that as well.
So if that means you're reallyhardcore about how often you're
(37:24):
on social media, you're reallyhardcore about who you follow
and who you interact with,because the algorithm is just
going to feed you what you'redoing, right?
So if you're scrolling andyou're looking at nothing but
other photographers' work,that's what's you know, you're
going to get stuck in that, andso that's one of the big things
I talk about a lot.
It's like, okay, where do youdraw that line between
(37:46):
inspiration and oh, my God, Isuck in comparison and all of
that stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
So yeah, that would be yeah, exactly, tune it out.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
You've got to really know yourself in that way and
kind of have that self-awarenesstoo, of balancing that.
I want to be supportive tomaybe some other friends in the
industry, but I also don't wantto get stuck in this place of
like okay, I am so confused now,and now I'm in, I'm frozen in
like overwhelm and I don't knowwhere to go.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Right, Well, the other thing is how many of us
have ADHD?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Right.
So, for whatever reason, somany photographers actually have
diagnosed ADHD.
And that makes that distractionso much more difficult to resist
.
And yeah, it is the people, mymentees, who are earlier in
(38:44):
their career, like following allthese other photographers and
like I love this, I love it.
You got to just like keep youreyes on your own paper for a
little while and and find out,like when you get home from a
session and you're calling, likewhat is really getting you
excited about what you just did,and try to find that common
thread about what you do and andlearn, then learn how to admire
but not feel like you have toreplicate because this is a
(39:08):
business.
I feel like I feel like that'sbeen a thing for me lately that
I'm encountering a lot is I'mgetting the impression that a
lot of photographers are notrealizing or just treating this
like it's a business beforeanything else.
It's not a hobby.
It's not a hobby where you goand you post your pictures on
Instagram and then ask for work.
(39:28):
It's an actual business.
So there's going to be partsthat you don't want to do.
You're in work with people youdon't want to work with and
you're going to have to getbored or whatever.
It's work.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
It's a job.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
It's a great job and I think we're a little spoiled
because of how great it is, sothat anytime it gets like a
little bit frictiony, we're like, oh, this is not okay, I'm, you
know, but it's a job at the endof the day.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, no, that's a bit that.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
And the novelty, like thebright, shiny object syndrome,
is because a lot of us, like yousaid, whether you have
diagnosed ADHD or you'reundiagnosed, or you just feel
like you might be somewhere inthat, you know, like chances are
, you probably have a little bitof a spicy brain, you know.
If you're drawn to this kind of, if you're an entrepreneur in
(40:13):
general, but if you're acreative entrepreneur and a
photographer especially, we doreally well here.
Yeah, you know this is our space, right, and so you're drawn to
the, the excitement, the newness, the fun, um, you're drawn to
the chaos, the I have to do 500,you know like, because,
(40:34):
honestly, it's not like youcan't, it's not that you can't
focus, is that you can, you canhyper-focus, but you also have a
hard time probably decipheringwhat needs to be focused on
first.
That is usually where thatbusiness, the business part,
comes in and you realize, oh,this was a really fun hobby, and
now I actually have to figureout how to make money at it.
(40:54):
I got to figure out how to sell, I got to figure out the
psychology of it and do allthese things.
And then you get stuck in thisADHD shutdown like overwhelm
mode and then it's like I can'tdo anything like freeze, yeah,
so if you're there, you know ifsomebody is there.
Before we wrap up, what is yourbiggest piece of advice for
people in that space?
Cause that is something I heara lot in my DMs yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Find a way because because I do think that, like
ADHD, brains do well when theymultitask Normally, like we have
to be ignoring one thing sothat we can focus on something
else, and find rhythms that workfor you and find the creativity
in the, because that's whatworked for me.
(41:42):
I found I am so much morecreative in my business than I
am in the art that I produce andit's commissioned, right, I'm
doing commissioned work.
I have to stay within theparameters of what I advertise
that I do.
So at the end of the day, thatis not, as I don't have as much
freedom there.
So when you, if you do have thatsort of brain, find a way to
(42:05):
exercise it within the admin,because there is a lot of
creative problem solving neededin that part of your business
and that's really all creativityis is solving a problem.
So find that and apply it there.
And it's so hard when you like,decide what you're going to
(42:26):
hyper-focus on and perseverateover, but, but, but look for it
because it's there, it's in thebusiness, and then understand
like that can be the fun part,that can be the creative part,
that's where you can experimentand try new things and you won't
get bored back there Like youare not going to get bored in
the business.
That's my advice.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, no, it's true, because you know if you've got
that kind of brain, you'relacking in dopamine, like if you
want to look at the scientificpieces of it, right.
So anytime you're doing any ofthese things seeking novelty,
you're just seeking dopamine.
You just think.
(43:07):
You know you're seeking thathit and it is a drug to our
brain.
So if you're low in dopamine,you're constantly going to be
seeking that, and so knowingthat and just being aware of
that, um, that's a big piece ofit.
So, if you know, if you knowthat scrolling on social media
is giving you a dopamine hit,like you've got to be, you've
got to set your parameters withyour own boundaries as well.
So, you know, sometimes thatmeans I have to like not just
(43:28):
turn off.
You know, my turn on my, do notdisturb.
That's not enough sometimes forme.
Like sometimes when I have alot going on and like a lot of
ideas, a lot of deadlines, a lotof things that I need to do,
that I know is a recipe for likecomplete shutdown for me and I
have to like.
I have to like lock my phoneaway.
(43:48):
I have to put it away, like inanother physical location.
In my house I've set timers forthings like that.
There's certain things that Ihave to do, and chunking the
time into small increments aswell, like for me, like 90
minutes, I'll give myself like a90 minute deep dive if I'm like
having to like really focushard on something and then I'm
(44:10):
going to give myself a break.
You know, like knowing yourselfis a really big piece of this,
because not every person withADHD either is exactly like the
other person with with ADHD,like, where our brains are all
very unique.
So anything that you can do, Ibelieve, to dig deeper into your
self-awareness and understandyourself so that you can make it
(44:34):
, like you said, work for you.
Like I always tell my clientsif you're not a morning person
and you can sleep in, like, whynot do that?
You know what I mean.
Who says you have to wake up atfive 30 in the morning?
Like, if, if you don't havekids to take to school and you
know you don't have you canschedule your day to make it
(44:54):
make sense for you.
So if you are more creative atnight, okay, do some work at
night.
Like, there are ways to do thiswhere you can make this
business work for you and you'llend up thriving if you do that.
But that feeling like I shouldfit into this.
You know this mold.
You got to throw that out thewindow.
Like you're creative, you'renever going to fit into a mold.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah, but that's what's so great about um finding
this career.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, yeah, the freedom yourself.
I think we're all after thefreedom.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Yeah, oh, absolutely Right, that is what.
Yeah, that is what it's aboutfor me.
Yeah, freedom for sure.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
People will say, well , I just want to make you know a
lot of money.
I'm like, yeah, but that's justthe, that's just the outcome
really after is the freedom thatthe money is going to give you
too.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.
That is it Exactly.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
All right.
Well, this has been awesome.
Thank you for sharing all ofthat.
Yeah, I could talk aboutpricing and psychology of it and
all of that all day long, buttell people where they can find
you and, like, where do you liketo connect with people most?
And I'll put all of thatobviously in the show notes for
people too.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
So I'm pretty chatty on Instagram.
My Instagram handle is at JillC Smith photography, but if you
want to learn more about what Ido on the educational front,
you'll find that at the businessfocused photographercom or on
my podcast, the business focusedphotographer.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Yep, awesome, all right, well, I will share that
with everybody.
And again, always good chattingwith you.
So thanks so much for beinghere.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
So good, right, okay.
So some of the takeaways that Ithink you guys can walk away
with today are your business canlook like however you want it
to look like, but you need toget some clarity around what you
want that to look like.
So if you don't have theclarity on that, make that a
priority.
Another one is that youprobably have a spicy brain,
you're probably a creative, andso stop trying to fit into the
(46:49):
mold of whatever you think youshould be doing right Like.
So throw the shoulds out thewindow and figure out what works
for you and your brain so thatyou can have a really profitable
but also fulfilling business.
Because if the business isrunning you into the ground and
you're constantly feeling likeyou don't know what to focus on
next, it's probably a disconnectin your purpose.
(47:12):
It could be a disconnect in howyou are going out with your
branding and what that goldenthread is, and maybe you don't
even know what that is, so diginto that.
And obviously, another takeawayis pricing.
If you are't even know whatthat is, so dig into that.
And obviously, another takeawayis pricing If you are triggered
by some of the stuff that wetalked about, if that made you
start to think about okay, I amrunning my business like a hobby
(47:32):
, I haven't really made money, Ihaven't looked at my numbers,
the numbers are too triggeringor whatever.
That is it's time.
Okay, make 2025 the year thatyou decide you're going to make
some changes.
And if you need help with that,you have so many options in
this industry.
Truly, you know, I offermentoring, I offer coaching Jill
(47:53):
does.
There's so many of us who do so.
You need to find somebody whoyou vibe with.
You need to find somebody whocan help you do what you want to
get done, and obviously youneed to vet that person and make
sure it's aligned.
But stop making excuses.
If you are just sort of likedoing the same thing over and
(48:14):
over again and getting the sameresult because nothing is going
to change until you do.
I know that's a cliche, butit's 100% true.
You can absolutely have thebusiness that you desire.
Okay, and you might need somehelp getting there, but it is
money well spent and I canpromise you that it makes a huge
difference.
Not even just like the outcomeof it, right, like the
(48:38):
transformation is awesome, butthe first step of investing in
yourself is a really boldstatement to yourself and to the
universe, and you are puttingit out there that I'm ready.
I am done doing the same thingthat I have been doing.
I'm done.
Okay, I'm ready for somethingbigger, better, more, and I am,
(49:03):
I am.
I am boldly making a statementand taking action.
So, if that's you, you canalways book a free call with me,
too, to chat and we can see howI can help you with your
business.
And if I feel like I can, I'mgoing to point you in a
direction that I feel wouldserve you better.
I don't always take onone-on-one clients.
I still run a full-timephotography business, so
definitely reach out, and if Idon't have space for you at that
(49:24):
time, we can talk about puttingyou on a wait list, and it
might even be better for you towait a couple months anyway.
So let's just chat though, okay, take a step.
So go out there and have agreat rest of your week, be
intentional with your time, beintentional with your business
and do something good foryourself today.
Love you, your business, and dosomething good for yourself
today.
Love you, bye.
Welcome to Tried and True with the Dash of Woo, where
we blend rock solid tips with alittle bit of magic.
I'm Renee Bowen, your host,life and business coach and
professional photographer atyour service.
We are all about gettingcreative, diving into your
business and playing withmanifestation over here.
So are you ready to getinspired and have some fun?
Let's dive in.
Hey friends, welcome back toTried and True with a Dash of
(00:27):
Woo.
I'm your host, renee Bowen.
Thank you again for being hereToday.
I have a fellow photographer andeducator on the podcast.
She's awesome.
You're going to love her.
If you don't know her already,jill Smith is a seasoned family
photographer and businessstrategist with over 11 years of
experience in the photographyindustry, and she built a highly
profitable and sustainablebusiness we love that by
(00:49):
blending strategic pricing,streamlined marketing and an
exceptional client experience.
So now she also mentors otherphotographers looking to scale
their businesses, and we talkedtoday all about pricing and
burnout and creativity and minisessions and how to make them
profitable.
We kind of dance around thispricing thing a lot, but there's
(01:13):
a lot of psychology that goesinto that and I feel like a lot
of you guys who listen are kindof in that place where you're
not necessarily super low pricedbut you're not luxury priced
and you're not sure if youshould be, and there's maybe a
lot of noise.
We also talk aboutneurodiversity and how that
comes into play with all of thisand how to navigate all of that
.
It's a good one.
(01:33):
So you guys are in for a treatand I know you're going to love
Jill, if you don't know heralready.
So we're just going to diveright in.
Hey, jill, thanks so much forbeing here.
I have a lot of questions aboutpricing because I mean, as you
know, like we both, we both talkabout this a lot.
We both talk about theimportance of it and also the
issues that a lot ofphotographers have when it comes
(01:53):
to pricing.
So I'm really curious becauseyou're on the East coast, I'm
way over here on the West coastI want to kind of just like dive
right into this pricing thing,cause it comes up for me a lot
in my coaching and I know thatyou talk about it a lot on
social and everywhere else.
Let's just go right there.
What are some of the commonfears and mental blocks that you
(02:15):
see photographers facing whenit comes to raising their prices
?
Because I hear a lot well,what's going to happen to my
current pricing?
I mean my current?
You know clients at thispricing, right?
So like that fear of losing thepeople that you had.
So what are some of the thingsthat you see come up and what is
your?
What is your advice for dealingwith?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
that essentially.
I don't think it's necessarily.
I think if people reallydistilled what they were feeling
down, I don't think that it'sthat they are so worried that
they won't find new clients withtheir new prices.
I think so much of it has to dowith this insecurity that we
(02:59):
have around losing our currentclients and fear of judgment,
and it's all entangled in humannature.
But because we are it, we arealmost all exclusively
solopreneurs, like mostphotographers are not part of a
really large team with somebodyin corporate making setting
their prices right.
So we are it.
(03:21):
We are the ones responsible forthat and we know that.
Our clients know that, so thatwhen we set our price, we are
putting it out there like thisis what I cost and it's my
decision.
And another piece is that mostof us are women and we're people
pleasers and we are caretakersand we want to take care of
everybody.
Everybody deserves photos,right, all that narrative to
(03:46):
take care of everybody.
Everybody deserves photos,right, all that narrative.
So we really worry aboutoffending people too and not
being able to provide this thingthat we think is not a luxury,
and forgetting that there arephotographers at other price
points that can accommodatethose folks who have a smaller
budget.
But yeah, I think when youbreak it down, it comes to fear.
(04:08):
It comes down to fear ofrejection.
A lot of imposter syndrome isin there.
Geez, there's.
There's so many factors that Ithink are at play here.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
You really hit the nail on the head, though, right
there.
I think too, like the femalepeople pleasing aspect of it, I
see that all the time.
I mean it's not justexclusively to women, I will say
that, but you know it is.
It's very common for femalesolopreneurs and, like you said,
we're wearing all the hats,we're doing all the things, and
(04:39):
so the pressure all falls on usand that just triggers all kinds
of unconscious programming thatwe all have in various ways,
some more than others, and eventhose of us I talk about this a
lot too.
I didn't even think I had awhole lot of that, but when I
was faced with like oh, when Ireally took a look at those
(05:02):
numbers years ago and realizedhow much I I really did need to
up my pricing and what it reallyshould be at, it triggered all
kinds of things.
So I think that that is areally big factor too.
One of the things I see a lotof women do specifically is that
they just don't look at thosenumbers because they're like, oh
, we're just going to just keepdoing this because it's
(05:23):
triggering.
So look at those numbers, butwhen you do it, that's that
factor that goes.
Okay, I got to get real withmyself now.
Now I know, and I can't go backto not knowing that I really
need to be charging this forthese albums or whatever it is,
if I want to be profitable, andwhat am I going to do about that
(05:44):
?
If I want to be profitable, andwhat am I going to do about
that?
So, yeah, I mean for yourself,what was that journey like for
you?
Right, we all have our storiesof you know fell into this and I
wasn't a business person and Ihad to figure it out.
What's your story coming tothat moment?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
So I want to.
I just want, before I answerthat, I want to acknowledge
something that you said.
Where it's like you can get,you can really bury your head
really deep in the sand aboutyour prices and just ignore them
because nobody's going to takeyour camera away Once.
Once you have your camera, youare in business, right, and it
is really easy to ignore or notacknowledge that you are losing
(06:25):
money, especially when it's aside hustle and you have a
normal and this is like this isjust for fun, this is my fun and
where it's like, oh, actuallyI'm losing money now, but but
yeah, for me.
I started out like mostphotographers.
You know 94% of us do not havedegrees in it, in this.
You know 94% of us do not havedegrees in this right, so I am
(06:45):
part of that 94% and I left mycareer in teaching.
I moved to a new area.
I was an ESL teacher.
Where I live now doesn't reallyhave that population, so I had
to figure something else out.
Anyway, started this because Ithought if other people can do
it, why can't I?
And, of course, started out at$50 because I think that's a
(07:07):
real, real start.
And then, when I got to, Irealized I needed to raise my
price.
I went to $100, which felt huge.
And you do this compensatorything where you start adding
like two 4x6s and an 8x10.
And this when you start toraise your four by sixes and an
eight by 10.
And this when you start toraise your prices because you
(07:27):
need to feel like you need atangible value in to go along
with your, your price increase.
And that's why I talk a lotabout increasing your, your
value, without increasingoverhead, and that's a whole
other thing.
But so then I did that, andthen I went to 185.
And then I was like gettingburnt out as I would, and then
it was to 399, because 400 wouldbe too much right, and 400 in
(07:53):
were felt to me like oh and thisis, or 399 felt like this is
where I'm going to max out, I'mgoing to stay here.
Going to stay here, and I wasattracting a new type of client
at $399, but was overbooked andburnt out.
And then I did my taxes thatyear and I think I had netted
(08:16):
$5,000 and I had worked my buttoff.
Can I curse on here?
Yeah, you can.
Okay, I worked my ass off, andso that was when I was like,
okay, well, I need to raise myprices significantly more.
I actually crunched the numbersthat year and you know, I think
what helped was that I took ona really big piece of overhead
(08:39):
that year as I started renting astudio, and so there was an
expense I could not ignore.
Year is I started renting astudio, and so there was an
expense I could not ignore.
You know, my camera was notcosting me money every month and
I was still editing with freeediting software.
So I actually it was during the.
It was when the Adobe suite wassomething you just spent like
$1,500 on once and then you hadit, so that was already paid for
(09:00):
.
There were no ongoing expensesbeing incurred until I got the
studio.
And then I was like, beforethere were no ongoing expenses
being incurred until I got thestudio.
And then I was like, okay, Ineed to be serious about this.
And I saw 800 was where Ineeded to go, so, once again
doubling my prices.
What I did, though, was prettystrategic and I didn't realize
(09:24):
it at the time was, instead ofdoing that, I moved to a session
fee model, so a session feepackage model, so it was like
$200 session fee and thenmultiple digital packages that
would eventually get me to $800.
And it enabled me to see thedata.
What are people actuallywilling to spend?
Are my clients willing to spend$800?
And they were, so thatemboldened me to then go to $800
and then to 950.
(09:45):
And then, right now, I'm at1200.
So, but that took 10 or 11years.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, no, I had something you know, kind of
similar and it, you're right,like I mean, most of this are
self-taught.
We sort of fall into it, youknow.
I mean it was something I haddone for a long time and never
thought it was something I coulddo and make money at it.
It was just like a hobby and Ithink that you know, I see a lot
of that.
You know, by the time people docome to me in coaching, they're
usually trying to get out ofthat.
(10:15):
They're in that gray zone, thatmiddle area of what.
You know you're not super cheapbut you're definitely not
considered luxury, right, andlike it feels too scary to do
that.
But you know, to be sustainableyou do need to raise that.
And it's such a hard thing todo on your own sometimes because
you do feel like you'reisolated and like how am I, how
(10:36):
can I do this, especially if youdon't have a lot of natural
business?
You know, with most, most of usdon't, most of us are creatives
, you know, and so we have tosort of figure that part out as
we go.
There's a rare group of peoplewho are both, but you know, it's
definitely not the norm fromwhat I see it's a really hard
(10:59):
thing to come to, like it's likeyou really do have to have that
come to Jesus moment withyourself, like you said, like
with taxes or when you're reallyfaced with those numbers, and
it's like, okay, well, what do Ido now?
How do I make this work?
The big part of that, too, is Ialways tell people like yes,
it's a strategy, we do need tocome up with what works for you,
(11:20):
because I'm a big believer inthat.
It is not one size fits all.
What works for me here in mymarket and my target client.
The basic strategy of that isyou can duplicate that, but we
need to make that reallyintentional with your region,
your clients and also how youwant to run your business.
(11:44):
That is a really big factor, andsomething I see a lot of
creatives deal with is notreally knowing what that is,
because they're inundated by allof this noise of what they
think they should have, whatthey think they should be doing,
and so that's a really big, Ithink factor in all of this is,
(12:05):
like you know, quieting thenoise around us enough to like
really focus on what do I reallywant this business to look like
?
Do I want to be high volume.
Do I want to be luxury, likewhat?
What feels good to you insteadof comparing yourself constantly
to other people and thatgetting into that trap of you
(12:25):
know feeling like you have toconstantly be playing that game.
So when you're working withphotographers and just in
general, in your own pricing,you know setting that.
You know what do you tellpeople about aligning their
pricing with their long-termbusiness goals?
Like is that I've seen you talkabout the importance of that,
but how do you address it foryourself and in your communities
(12:49):
?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah, I totally agree with you.
There is so much noise and it'sfunny how most photographers
will pay attention to the, buteverybody else in my area is
$100 million like that sort ofmindset.
You got to know how to run abasic cost of doing business,
right?
So you need to know what thatis and then what your time is
(13:12):
worth to you.
And I think that there's atipping point and I'm sure that
you have tipped the scalealready in your business where
your time becomes your currency,not the dollar, right?
So your time is so much morefinite and you can you already
know now okay, I can, I can buyback some time, I can buy back
other things, but I and I canmake more money, but I can't get
(13:35):
I can't get more time in my day.
So you get to that point, butuntil you are at that tipping
point, the way I tell the peoplethat I coach and mentor is like
you got to do shitty things fora while and I haven't figured
out a way to fast track through.
(13:56):
That is not being as profitableas you want to be, Because,
aside from needing to stay inbusiness by having profitable
pricing, you also need to havethe trust of your market and the
(14:16):
reputation, and there's just noway to rush that.
So you get there and I have alot of different strategies for
raising your prices slowly,comfortably, because it has to
be comfortable for you too.
And then, yeah, what is yourvision?
Because there is not one way todo it.
There used to be the narrativethat like, yes, IPS was it.
(14:38):
It had to be luxury, why wouldyou?
But that's not it.
You can be a volume, you canrun a business with a volume
model, you can be mid-range, butyou need to figure out what's
the trade-off.
So if you want to be mid-rangewhich I agree, that's like the
majority of the people I workwith are mid-range, which is a
difficult place to bait.
It's a really swollen part ofthe market, isn't it?
(14:59):
So if you want to be that, thenwhat's the trade-off?
How are you going to make thismore efficient for yourself?
What are you going to outsource?
You need to make sure that youroverhead is low enough to
sustain you at this mid-rangeprice point, because maybe those
are the people you love to workwith.
There's no shame in that, butit has, like you're saying, it
has to be strategic.
(15:19):
There has to be intention whenyou are setting these prices and
math a lot of math.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
There has to be intention when you are setting
these prices and math, a lot ofmath, absolutely no, it
definitely has to be.
The math part is usually kindof what trips people up to.
I feel like such a big piece ofit.
I mean, I, I definitely wasthat kid who was triggered by
math.
I was always told that I wasbad at it.
Like it goes back, I think thatwhat they did to us in school
like honestly, honestly, likeseriously, it's a crime.
(15:45):
Um, we weren't bad at math, wejust weren't being taught the
right way.
Like all of us, creative, spicybrains or whatever, like I'll
learn differently, you know, andyou know with my psychology
training and then, like you know, nlp training that I went
through.
Like we all have our own way ofaccessing information and not,
(16:06):
yeah, most of us are probablysomewhat visual because we're
artists, but a lot of us arekinesthetic learners and so
having a kid with special needsreally was like my.
You know, it shined a brightlight on that for me, and I see
it a lot in coaching and just inour communities as well, where
(16:27):
you're taught a certain way ofjust anything and it's like it's
just not sticking.
It's not sticking, and so thatdoes go along with what we're
talking about, too, of, like,what works for you, what what's
going to really work for you,because it's true, like you know
, we can give you the roadmap,we can give you this strategy
that worked for us and it may ormay not stick for you.
What matters is, you know, areyou able, is your nervous system
(16:51):
going to be able to hold thatas well?
Like, do you have some pasttriggers with money that you
haven't dealt with?
Cause, most of us are workingfrom our past.
You know, we're working fromwhat we were told about it,
whether it was like caregivers,parents telling us that it was
hard to make you needed to workreally hard.
Whatever it is, we have our ownstory, and we tend to put that
(17:11):
on our clients as well.
We tend to assume they're goingto have that same map of the
world and perspective as we do,and we don't, and that is a very
, very big piece of it is youknow, okay, let's figure out,
like, like you said, do you wantto stay in this mid range?
Well, okay, how can you do thatprofitably?
Then, like, and and also withyour time, because I'm going to
(17:33):
tell you, like, my time is.
My time is the most valuablething, and I was building this
business with three kids underthe age of two, one with special
needs.
I I did not have time to doin-person consults.
I did not have time to do allthese things that we're going to
like lead into this experienceto, you know, add value to this
(17:58):
experience that I was chargingfor.
So how could I?
I had to get really creativeabout how am I going to do that
on my terms that works for meand my family and unfortunately,
I think what happens a lot isthat photographers just don't
take that into consideration andthey just go ahead and just do.
They just lay themselves on thetable.
Get back to that people pleasingthing that we were talking
(18:18):
about before of.
Well, let me just do everythingfor everybody else.
You know, I see I see peopleonline all the time talking
about how they feel guilty aboutsending voice.
Are they like they're leavingthis session?
I saw a really funny reel abouta photographer being like you
know laugh and like there werethousands of comments on this
reel about this you knowphotographer saying that she
(18:40):
felt so guilty sending theinvoice for, like, the
engagement session or whateverit was after she had spent hours
with this couple.
It's like, you guys, you gotta,we gotta, work on that.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the the guilt it is.
It is so much um having to dowith our, our programming
surrounding money and everything.
Uh, because, um, there, ifthere's one thing that I've
learned is that my relationshipwith money is not my client's
relationship with money and thethe other thing is that, um, I
(19:15):
don't, I don't assume any.
I don't assume that somebodywho pulls up in a Lexus is going
to be more willing to pay methan somebody who pulls up in
like a Dodge Neon.
So, because I actually havethese clients who I know are
working minimum wage jobs thathire me at full price, and then
(19:38):
I have people who have way moremoney, or at least seem to that
nickel and dime me.
So I put all of those pretensesaside now and it's just like
plain and simple.
Here's what it is.
This is what it costs to workwith me.
I do have options that I calllike my back pocket offers and
my foot in the door offers,because I appreciate the
(20:02):
trepidation around spending alot of money on a service when
you haven't done it before withthat person.
So I will do pop-ups.
I very much have the mentalityof the like boots to the ground
marketing that I did early in mybusiness still has a place in
my marketing scheme now.
It actually is a really bigpiece of my marketing and
(20:26):
networking.
So I will still do street fairswhere I have a portrait pop up
and that doesn't compare tohaving a full family session
with me, but it gives people ataste of what it's like to work
with me.
They meet me, which is huge.
It is so big to be able to getphysically in front of of a
prospect.
So, yeah, sorry, I'm tangentingout as I will.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
No, that's important, that's a big piece of it though
, because a lot of people feellike I feel like a lot of
photographers are sort of like,have the mindset of that they're
working.
Okay, if I, if I do all thishard work now, then I can just
relax and not have to do as muchmarketing later.
That's just not the reality.
It's like and that's a reallygood point bring up, because
(21:14):
unfortunately the marketingnever stops that doesn't mean
you have to kill yourself doingit 24 seven.
There are things you know thatyou can do to get more efficient
.
You know their systems andprocesses and all kinds of
automations, et cetera, that youknow ideally, you want to
implement so that you aren't onthe hook for your marketing all
(21:36):
the time.
But it doesn't replace beingphysically, especially when
we're talking about a higher endservice.
It doesn't replace beingphysically in your market.
Social media is not areplacement for that, even SEO.
I think all those things needto work together.
Your SEO strategy, yourin-person marketing, your word
of mouth and that social mediapiece those all need to work
together.
As your SEO strategy, yourin-person marketing, your word
(21:57):
of mouth and you know thatsocial media piece, those all
need to work seamlessly togetherand, ideally, when they are
working together.
You don't feel like you'reconstantly.
You know marketing per se, butyou I see a lot of photographers
kind of forget about that pieceof it.
They feel like, oh, if I justget to this place, but if you
just kind of understand that, ifI just get to this place, but
(22:18):
if you just kind of understandthat, no, I just need to create
a better system for me and mylife and how I want this to look
.
And you can.
You definitely can, butsometimes it is trial and error.
Sometimes you have toexperiment with some things and
sometimes you have to do somethings that you're like, yep,
that's absolutely no, like Iwill, that's, that's something
that I, that's something that Idon't want to continue doing.
(22:39):
But there is no replacement forreally continuing to have that
foothold in your local market.
So, those back pocket offers,those other things that you have
, and I want to dive into alittle bit of that, because one
of the things that you talkabout a lot is this profitable
mini session, because manysessions in our industry gets a
(23:00):
very bad rap and a lot ofphotographers are like I hate
them, you know, like I just, andthey hate them because they're
on the hook for very littlemoney and spending too much time
, whether it's with editing orthe whole process or whatever,
and they haven't figured out howto make that profitable.
So you know how?
(23:21):
How have you turned thatperception on its head?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
So what is more, um, more of the mechanism that the
mini sessions serve me is theway that I model them, and that
is as a and I think all minisessions should be this way.
But I don't think they are.
I think many photographers sellmini sessions as one-off
30-minute sessions and that isjust, of course.
(23:46):
You don't like it.
So I do mine 15 or 20 minutesback-to-back at the same
location one weekend, that's it,and I'll do like six in the
night.
For me, at this stage of mybusiness, they are priced at
$400.
And you get a voucher for fivedigitals, for the five digital
package, but of course there'sother digital packages and you
(24:06):
can use that voucher to redeem abigger one.
And, without fail, more thanhalf of my clients buy the whole
package, which ends up being$800 total that I gross on the
mini session in 15 or 20 minutesand only 5% don't upgrade at
(24:28):
all.
So everybody else is somewherein between and this is very
profitable.
Profitable.
It normally ends up beingaround 400 to $500 an hour when
I factor in the onboarding of it.
You know the marketing and allthat stuff, which is easy
because it's a mini session.
There's not a whole lot of.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah, and you're duplicating it each time you do
it.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, yeah, it's yes.
And then the editing, thecalling in, the editing is also
super efficient.
Thank you AI.
So it all gets done veryquickly and then I get that
money and it's a quick hit forthem, it's a quick hit for me.
I see it as a win-win.
But I use the same model formodel, calls micro sessions,
(25:11):
like my pop-ups, anything likethat I like.
I think consumers do well, or Iguess we do well when our
consumers have a coupon you know, and they think about it as
this money that they have tospend.
The $400 that they gave me islong gone.
You know that's that was a longtime ago that they they paid
(25:34):
that to me and if they areanything like me as buyers, like
sure, what's another $400?
I'll get the rest of the photosnow.
But what this does is thatafter a family books me for a
mini session for a few years,they start to see like all right
, for another $400, I could haveway more control over how this
(25:55):
session looks and where it isand how long it is and who's
involved and how my dog it couldbe in my house.
All that and then peoplegraduate to my full sessions,
because I hear a lot ofeducators say that many session
clients are not the same assession clients.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, I wanted to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
That's not.
That is, people are provingthat to be wrong in my business
all the time.
Um, I think if you do itcorrectly and you make them way
more profitable for you, um,then it becomes a no brainer
eventually for that person tothen go in and invest in your
main offer.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, I agree, I agree with that.
Um, and let me just also askyou when you're doing these
minis?
Like you said, it's just thatweekend and this is not like all
the time, correct?
No, once a year.
Now they're once a year.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
They don't get advertised, they only go to my
email list.
In fact now they only go to asegment of my email list.
I have associates who one ofthem loves to do many sessions,
so she does several rounds ofmini sessions during the year
that we will advertise, but mymini sessions are only for past
mini session clients and they goout to that segment of my email
list for booking and then theybook up and in fact last year I
(27:09):
did one day of them because thatlist is getting smaller and
it's just becoming a part ofthis ladder to get people to
invest with me for a fullsession.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yeah Well, there's a couple of things there too,
right?
So that's how I Same with me.
If I'm going to do them, it'sgoing to be just once a year.
It's very limited.
It's 15, 20 minutes back toback.
Same sort of idea, same sort ofstructure, Back to that.
Same sort of idea.
Same sort of structure, samesort of buy-in, Exactly, Almost
exactly that, with that pricingas well.
(27:42):
And it's very easy for me toget my mini session clients to
invest another six, eight, wellover a thousand sometimes as
well.
It's not uncommon for me tosell albums to my mini session
clients.
So you know, I would agree thatit is not always a different
client Sometimes it is,sometimes like there have been
(28:06):
cases, but it's rare for mebecause of the way that it's
modeled and I think that it alsodepends, like you said, on like
at this place of your businessand how long you've been in
business and the fact that youdo email your clients and you
have that relationship.
That's a factor as well, Likethat kind of marketing is
important with this.
So I want to kind of bring thatinto it a little bit, like the
(28:27):
branding part of it, like thebuilding this brand to sustain
this kind of like.
You can turn this on and offwhen you want to.
You can project like okay, youknow what A really great idea is
to do a promo in early summerfor families, especially because
, let's face it, holidays getreally busy.
Why not just knock this out inthe early summer if you wanted
(28:48):
to, instead of even doing itright before the holidays?
You could earn that on in yourbusiness if you want to earn
that on in your business if youwant to and that would you know.
For for my audience especially,like I have a lot of senior
photographers who listen youknow, late May, early June tends
to be like you want to getthose clients in and it's hard
to get those clients in.
(29:13):
You could, you could do a little, you could do a little modified
mini thing too, you know.
And so it just takes somecreative thinking about how and
strategic thinking about how youwant to get that done with the
branding part of it.
So as you're building, let'ssay, someone who is listening is
sort of still in that model oftrying to build this photography
(29:33):
business.
Maybe they're in the mid rangealready and they're kind of
wanting to get out of it.
They don't see a way out of itand they feel like minis are
like a quick hit.
What are some of the thingsthat that photographer can be
doing now to build into thiskind of model that we've been
talking about, where, yes, youcan go into luxury, you can do
(29:54):
IPS or you can do a modified IPSthing, or you can turn on some
minis?
What would you say is one ofthe biggest factors, or maybe a
handful of factors thatphotographers need to be
thinking about as they'rebuilding this brand?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
As far as including mini sessions in their brand or
like well, yes, or the brandthey aspire to be.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Right, like so, basically, as they build the
kind of brand that they want towork to, that's, a little bit
more luxury, and yet still beable to infuse it with pop-ups,
like mini sessions or pop-upsessions or model calls, things
like that.
Like how you were talking abouthow some we hear a lot about
how there's a disconnect, okay,of that like you're talking to
(30:38):
two different clients.
Well, if that's not true, right, when we've both seen proof of
that in our business, what aresome of the factors in their
marketing and branding they needto be thinking about?
I guess it's probably a betterway to ask that question.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Well, like where are you finding your clients Are?
Are they aligned?
A better way to ask thatquestion yeah Well, where are
you finding your clients?
Are they aligned?
Are they aligned?
So I think finding alignedpeople is the most important
factor, and I don't subscribe tothe client avatar thing,
because I have so many peoplethat I love working with, who
(31:15):
love to work with me, who are abig part of growing my business,
who are so different, so Ican't compartmentalize them.
But finding aligned clients whoappreciate you, who don't come
in with their Pinterest boardsright and try to micromanage
because that is what happensinevitably when you're
inexpensive is people see you asa hired gun and they're like I
(31:38):
can just get this kid with acamera and they're going to do
whatever I tell them.
I'm going to show up withChristmas lights to wrap my kid
around for a big shot and thingsthat probably aren't on brand
for you.
So finding these alignedclients is the most important
thing, and figuring out how tospot them and how to communicate
to them.
Being consistent in yourportfolio and your online
(32:01):
portfolio is huge, and I don'tthink that there's one style of
photography that is morehigh-end than the other, but I
think the act of beingconsistent is high-end being
consistent and predictable,ignoring the trends when they
come along and you get bright,shiny object syndrome and you're
like I want to try that.
I want to change this, I want todo this, I want to do this.
Try to just, even if you'regetting bored, try to keep doing
(32:24):
the thing that you're doingbecause, being consistent and
predictable, you're just goingto keep getting better and
better and better and better atwhat you do and, when the time
comes, niche down.
Early photographers are goingto get this advice that they
(32:47):
need to niche, but you can'tniche until you know what you
really want to be doing, whatyou're really good at and what
your market needs.
Graduate with you as yourbusiness grows, instead of these
people who you think you haveto treat as legacy clients, who
get your original pricing andthen you resent seeing every
year when they book you duringthe busy season.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah, no, for sure.
I think that resonance isreally key, finding those
aligned clients, and so, yeah, Iwould agree that it starts.
It starts with the most youthat you can be and you know,
the more that you double down onthat and and are intentional
(33:25):
with, instead of trying to tryon all these different things.
Like you said, the consistencyof your brand is very, very
important, but you kind of dohave to start with well, what is
that?
And a lot of people don't know,and so that's kind of that
disjoint, that's that problem,See a lot of photographers
dealing with initially, and then, yeah, from there, like you
(33:47):
said, you know, I would agreethat our clients can be varied,
for sure, even within a niche.
Yeah, I've got, I've got peoplewho spend well over six or
$7,000 on a senior portraitexperience and they're not
necessarily what you wouldstereotypically call super
wealthy, and those clients arevery different from me as well.
(34:08):
They're not always superaligned with who I am.
However, there is a resonance,whether it, whether it's like
with my vibe, my work, your work, definitely as photographers,
is going to be the thing thatinitially will attract that, you
know.
But I always kind of use thatexample of, like it's kind of
people.
People do get a little hung upon the client avatar and I do
(34:32):
think it's important in someniches more than others.
In seniors, I feel like it's alittle more important because
our teen clients are very trendyand so, as a senior
photographer, we do need to knowwhat those trends are, not so
that we can change our style,but we do need to be aware of
what our client wants, needs andis craving, so that we can
(34:56):
decide whether we want to meetthem where they are, or an
experiment or not, while stillkeeping our brand very
consistent and our messaging.
But if you know that from theget-go, that golden thread is
just going to be there anywayand you can kind of play and be
creative and things like that.
But just because you'remarketing to this client avatar
too, it doesn't mean you're notgoing to attract other people.
(35:17):
You know I talk about this alot.
I don't have a baby anywhere onmy website, but I still get
inquiries for babies Like whywould you ask me to photograph
your baby Please?
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
When your brand is strong, when your messaging is
strong and you have that goodresonance, people are going to
just assume that, oh well, Ilove your work or I love
something about you.
Will you shoot this, you know,and it's like I'm going to refer
you to somebody?
Awesome, I am not going to dothat.
Or you can decide if you wantto.
Right.
Right, that's up to you.
Yes, but all that to say whenyou're talking to you know your
(35:54):
client in that way, it doesn'tmean you're only talking to that
one person.
Like you said, you are going toattract these other people and
I think, like you said, it goesback to having that strong brand
consistency across everything,and that really will carry you
really really far.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
I think yeah, because people who are looking to spend
thousand plus dollars aren'tgoing to just go to anybody.
They're gonna go to somebodywho they really love and they're
not going to really love you,your work, if they scroll back a
couple of weeks and you weredoing something totally
different.
So that is where I think it'sso boring.
(36:37):
But I think that's where themagic happens for people who
stay in business is just beingconsistent.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Yeah, exactly no, I agree.
And so, like I think that's forthose of you guys listening, I
think that's a really bigtakeaway from this, and I know
that it can feel confusing, likeyou know, when, when you like
consistency, that could be a bigumbrella, let's say Right.
So, like you said, it can feelboring and, as creatives and
(37:03):
photographers, I think a lot ofus have that.
Like you said, this bright,shiny I always call it bright
shiny object syndrome.
Like you want to try this, youwant to try that A lot of this
comes down to like your own,your own personal boundaries and
not allowing yourself to getsucked into that as well.
So if that means you're reallyhardcore about how often you're
(37:24):
on social media, you're reallyhardcore about who you follow
and who you interact with,because the algorithm is just
going to feed you what you'redoing, right?
So if you're scrolling andyou're looking at nothing but
other photographers' work,that's what's you know, you're
going to get stuck in that, andso that's one of the big things
I talk about a lot.
It's like, okay, where do youdraw that line between
(37:46):
inspiration and oh, my God, Isuck in comparison and all of
that stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
So yeah, that would be yeah, exactly, tune it out.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
You've got to really know yourself in that way and
kind of have that self-awarenesstoo, of balancing that.
I want to be supportive tomaybe some other friends in the
industry, but I also don't wantto get stuck in this place of
like okay, I am so confused now,and now I'm in, I'm frozen in
like overwhelm and I don't knowwhere to go.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Right, Well, the other thing is how many of us
have ADHD?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Right.
So, for whatever reason, somany photographers actually have
diagnosed ADHD.
And that makes that distractionso much more difficult to resist
.
And yeah, it is the people, mymentees, who are earlier in
(38:44):
their career, like following allthese other photographers and
like I love this, I love it.
You got to just like keep youreyes on your own paper for a
little while and and find out,like when you get home from a
session and you're calling, likewhat is really getting you
excited about what you just did,and try to find that common
thread about what you do and andlearn, then learn how to admire
but not feel like you have toreplicate because this is a
(39:08):
business.
I feel like I feel like that'sbeen a thing for me lately that
I'm encountering a lot is I'mgetting the impression that a
lot of photographers are notrealizing or just treating this
like it's a business beforeanything else.
It's not a hobby.
It's not a hobby where you goand you post your pictures on
Instagram and then ask for work.
(39:28):
It's an actual business.
So there's going to be partsthat you don't want to do.
You're in work with people youdon't want to work with and
you're going to have to getbored or whatever.
It's work.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
It's a job.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
It's a great job and I think we're a little spoiled
because of how great it is, sothat anytime it gets like a
little bit frictiony, we're like, oh, this is not okay, I'm, you
know, but it's a job at the endof the day.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, no, that's a bit that.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
And the novelty, like thebright, shiny object syndrome,
is because a lot of us, like yousaid, whether you have
diagnosed ADHD or you'reundiagnosed, or you just feel
like you might be somewhere inthat, you know, like chances are
, you probably have a little bitof a spicy brain, you know.
If you're drawn to this kind of, if you're an entrepreneur in
(40:13):
general, but if you're acreative entrepreneur and a
photographer especially, we doreally well here.
Yeah, you know this is our space, right, and so you're drawn to
the, the excitement, the newness, the fun, um, you're drawn to
the chaos, the I have to do 500,you know like, because,
(40:34):
honestly, it's not like youcan't, it's not that you can't
focus, is that you can, you canhyper-focus, but you also have a
hard time probably decipheringwhat needs to be focused on
first.
That is usually where thatbusiness, the business part,
comes in and you realize, oh,this was a really fun hobby, and
now I actually have to figureout how to make money at it.
(40:54):
I got to figure out how to sell, I got to figure out the
psychology of it and do allthese things.
And then you get stuck in thisADHD shutdown like overwhelm
mode and then it's like I can'tdo anything like freeze, yeah,
so if you're there, you know ifsomebody is there.
Before we wrap up, what is yourbiggest piece of advice for
people in that space?
Cause that is something I heara lot in my DMs yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Find a way because because I do think that, like
ADHD, brains do well when theymultitask Normally, like we have
to be ignoring one thing sothat we can focus on something
else, and find rhythms that workfor you and find the creativity
in the, because that's whatworked for me.
(41:42):
I found I am so much morecreative in my business than I
am in the art that I produce andit's commissioned, right, I'm
doing commissioned work.
I have to stay within theparameters of what I advertise
that I do.
So at the end of the day, thatis not, as I don't have as much
freedom there.
So when you, if you do have thatsort of brain, find a way to
(42:05):
exercise it within the admin,because there is a lot of
creative problem solving neededin that part of your business
and that's really all creativityis is solving a problem.
So find that and apply it there.
And it's so hard when you like,decide what you're going to
(42:26):
hyper-focus on and perseverateover, but, but, but look for it
because it's there, it's in thebusiness, and then understand
like that can be the fun part,that can be the creative part,
that's where you can experimentand try new things and you won't
get bored back there Like youare not going to get bored in
the business.
That's my advice.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, no, it's true, because you know if you've got
that kind of brain, you'relacking in dopamine, like if you
want to look at the scientificpieces of it, right.
So anytime you're doing any ofthese things seeking novelty,
you're just seeking dopamine.
You just think.
(43:07):
You know you're seeking thathit and it is a drug to our
brain.
So if you're low in dopamine,you're constantly going to be
seeking that, and so knowingthat and just being aware of
that, um, that's a big piece ofit.
So, if you know, if you knowthat scrolling on social media
is giving you a dopamine hit,like you've got to be, you've
got to set your parameters withyour own boundaries as well.
So, you know, sometimes thatmeans I have to like not just
(43:28):
turn off.
You know, my turn on my, do notdisturb.
That's not enough sometimes forme.
Like sometimes when I have alot going on and like a lot of
ideas, a lot of deadlines, a lotof things that I need to do,
that I know is a recipe for likecomplete shutdown for me and I
have to like.
I have to like lock my phoneaway.
(43:48):
I have to put it away, like inanother physical location.
In my house I've set timers forthings like that.
There's certain things that Ihave to do, and chunking the
time into small increments aswell, like for me, like 90
minutes, I'll give myself like a90 minute deep dive if I'm like
having to like really focushard on something and then I'm
(44:10):
going to give myself a break.
You know, like knowing yourselfis a really big piece of this,
because not every person withADHD either is exactly like the
other person with with ADHD,like, where our brains are all
very unique.
So anything that you can do, Ibelieve, to dig deeper into your
self-awareness and understandyourself so that you can make it
(44:34):
, like you said, work for you.
Like I always tell my clientsif you're not a morning person
and you can sleep in, like, whynot do that?
You know what I mean.
Who says you have to wake up atfive 30 in the morning?
Like, if, if you don't havekids to take to school and you
know you don't have you canschedule your day to make it
(44:54):
make sense for you.
So if you are more creative atnight, okay, do some work at
night.
Like, there are ways to do thiswhere you can make this
business work for you and you'llend up thriving if you do that.
But that feeling like I shouldfit into this.
You know this mold.
You got to throw that out thewindow.
Like you're creative, you'renever going to fit into a mold.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah, but that's what's so great about um finding
this career.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, yeah, the freedom yourself.
I think we're all after thefreedom.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Yeah, oh, absolutely Right, that is what.
Yeah, that is what it's aboutfor me.
Yeah, freedom for sure.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
People will say, well , I just want to make you know a
lot of money.
I'm like, yeah, but that's justthe, that's just the outcome
really after is the freedom thatthe money is going to give you
too.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.
That is it Exactly.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
All right.
Well, this has been awesome.
Thank you for sharing all ofthat.
Yeah, I could talk aboutpricing and psychology of it and
all of that all day long, buttell people where they can find
you and, like, where do you liketo connect with people most?
And I'll put all of thatobviously in the show notes for
people too.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
So I'm pretty chatty on Instagram.
My Instagram handle is at JillC Smith photography, but if you
want to learn more about what Ido on the educational front,
you'll find that at the businessfocused photographercom or on
my podcast, the business focusedphotographer.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Yep, awesome, all right, well, I will share that
with everybody.
And again, always good chattingwith you.
So thanks so much for beinghere.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
So good, right, okay.
So some of the takeaways that Ithink you guys can walk away
with today are your business canlook like however you want it
to look like, but you need toget some clarity around what you
want that to look like.
So if you don't have theclarity on that, make that a
priority.
Another one is that youprobably have a spicy brain,
you're probably a creative, andso stop trying to fit into the
(46:49):
mold of whatever you think youshould be doing right Like.
So throw the shoulds out thewindow and figure out what works
for you and your brain so thatyou can have a really profitable
but also fulfilling business.
Because if the business isrunning you into the ground and
you're constantly feeling likeyou don't know what to focus on
next, it's probably a disconnectin your purpose.
(47:12):
It could be a disconnect in howyou are going out with your
branding and what that goldenthread is, and maybe you don't
even know what that is, so diginto that.
And obviously, another takeawayis pricing.
If you are't even know whatthat is, so dig into that.
And obviously, another takeawayis pricing If you are triggered
by some of the stuff that wetalked about, if that made you
start to think about okay, I amrunning my business like a hobby
(47:32):
, I haven't really made money, Ihaven't looked at my numbers,
the numbers are too triggeringor whatever.
That is it's time.
Okay, make 2025 the year thatyou decide you're going to make
some changes.
And if you need help with that,you have so many options in
this industry.
Truly, you know, I offermentoring, I offer coaching Jill
(47:53):
does.
There's so many of us who do so.
You need to find somebody whoyou vibe with.
You need to find somebody whocan help you do what you want to
get done, and obviously youneed to vet that person and make
sure it's aligned.
But stop making excuses.
If you are just sort of likedoing the same thing over and
(48:14):
over again and getting the sameresult because nothing is going
to change until you do.
I know that's a cliche, butit's 100% true.
You can absolutely have thebusiness that you desire.
Okay, and you might need somehelp getting there, but it is
money well spent and I canpromise you that it makes a huge
difference.
Not even just like the outcomeof it, right, like the
(48:38):
transformation is awesome, butthe first step of investing in
yourself is a really boldstatement to yourself and to the
universe, and you are puttingit out there that I'm ready.
I am done doing the same thingthat I have been doing.
I'm done.
Okay, I'm ready for somethingbigger, better, more, and I am,
(49:03):
I am.
I am boldly making a statementand taking action.
So, if that's you, you canalways book a free call with me,
too, to chat and we can see howI can help you with your
business.
And if I feel like I can, I'mgoing to point you in a
direction that I feel wouldserve you better.
I don't always take onone-on-one clients.
I still run a full-timephotography business, so
definitely reach out, and if Idon't have space for you at that
(49:24):
time, we can talk about puttingyou on a wait list, and it
might even be better for you towait a couple months anyway.
So let's just chat though, okay, take a step.
So go out there and have agreat rest of your week, be
intentional with your time, beintentional with your business
and do something good foryourself today.
Love you, your business, and dosomething good for yourself
today.
Love you, bye.
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