May 14, 2024 • 49 mins
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Welcome to this transformative episode of "Tried & True with a Dash of Woo," where we dive deep into the concept of alignment within your photography business.
Join me, Renee, and my special guest, Annemie Tonken, as we explore practical strategies to realign your business for greater success and satisfaction.
In This Episode, We Discuss:
- The Concept of Alignment: Understanding what it means and its importance in your business.
- Symptoms of Misalignment: How to recognize when your business isn’t quite fitting together properly.
- The Five P’s of Alignment: Preferences, Parameters, Products, Pricing, and Policies—how each plays a crucial role in your business structure.
- Practical Steps for Realignment: Actionable advice to adjust and enhance each aspect of your business.
- Real-Life Analogies: Annemie shares enlightening comparisons to everyday situations, like the misaligned water bottle lid, to illustrate points of business alignment.
- The Impact of Misalignment on Business Success: How it affects client interactions and your bottom line.
- A Framework for Continuous Improvement: How to keep assessing and improving your alignment over time.
If you're feeling like something in your photography business isn't quite right, or you're just curious about how to elevate your operations to the next level, this episode is a must-listen.
Annemie Tonken brings clarity to the somewhat elusive concept of business alignment with tangible examples and a straightforward framework. Tune in to discover how aligning your business more closely with your personal and professional aspirations can lead to increased trust from your clients and a more profitable, satisfying business venture.
Don't miss out on these insights—press play now and step into alignment!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
you are always hiking uphill.
I'm a big believer that thereare.
I mean, I agree with you.
There is that I call it thedead zone in the middle.
But the um, there is that weirdmid middle zone, uh, of pricing
that can can be just reallyhard, cause you're not.
It's like the clients are,they're, they're either trying
to aim one way or the other wayand you're just there standing
(00:21):
in the middle.
But it is possible, I believe,to run a successful business in
that zone if you are extremelyclear on what it is that
differentiates you and you cancreate that messaging, because
otherwise it's too easy tocompare on price.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Welcome to Tried and True with a 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 tothe show.
(01:06):
I'm Renee Bowen, your host.
Thanks for joining me here onTried and True with a Dash of
Woo, and I have two reallyimportant announcements and then
we'll get to today's show thatyou are going to absolutely love
.
I have a phenomenal guest foryou, but real quick.
My first announcement is thatif you are in my free Facebook
group for high school seniorphotographers it's literally
(01:27):
called that you can find thelink for it below in the show
notes as well.
If you are already a memberthere or if you want to be, just
join us real quick, because Iam hosting a live this morning
at 9 am.
Okay, you guys, if you arestruggling with your finances
and you just aren't organized,or you don't know what to do, or
(01:49):
you just really need someguidance, you want to tune into
this Facebook Live Again, 9amPacific time inside my Facebook
group.
The link is right below theshow notes.
Hop in there.
We'll do our best to get youadmitted as soon as possible so
that you can join us, live andask questions, but I have my
(02:09):
friend, perry from Found.
Found is an amazing resourcethat I recently found that I
want to introduce you to, buttoday we are specifically
talking about the five majorfinancial mistakes that we see
creative entrepreneurs make andhow to avoid them.
Essentially, this is for you ifyou have ever felt, or you
(02:30):
currently feel, that it's reallytough to juggle your creative
work with the finances part ofyour business.
It can be a lot, and I've seenunder the hood of a lot of
photography businesses over theyears.
So there's some common mistakesthat I see you guys making and,
more importantly, I want tohighlight them so that you can
(02:52):
avoid them or fix them if you'vealready made them.
And again, I will be joined byPerry from Found, which is an
all-in-one banking app for theself-employed, for the creative
an all-in-one banking app forthe self-employed, for the
creative and he's going to besharing some tools as well to
help us in our financialmanagement, to make it way
(03:12):
easier than it probably is foryou right now.
Found offers smart businessbanking and powerful,
easy-to-use tools to makebookkeeping, taxes and invoicing
simpler than ever.
So after you listen to thisepisode, if it's bright and
early for you, head over to thelive session in the Facebook
group so that you can uncoverthose common financial pitfalls
(03:34):
that many of us fall into anddiscuss some simple, actionable
steps that you can take to getthose finances in check and make
you just feel more empowered.
So that is the firstannouncement.
The second announcement is thatyou might have seen on my
Instagram or if you're on mymailing list that I am a speaker
(03:56):
at this year's Milky Way onlineretreat, which is really big,
because I normally don't createcourses and programs for other
platforms other than my own, butI absolutely love the Milky Way
.
I love Lisa and just her wholevibe and what they've created
with her platform.
(04:17):
I just love and I know a lot ofyou guys love her and love the
Milky Way as well.
So when she asked me to be apart of it as the senior
photographer educator, I saidabsolutely, sign me up so you
will get to shoot with me andedit with me a whole session.
It's all done for you.
(04:38):
You can watch me, you can hearme, see how I pose and I prompt.
The title of it is basicallyeditorial posing and lighting
for Gen Z, because we know thatour Gen Z senior clients are way
more savvy.
They want a certain sort oflook about their images and
again, it's all about youfinding your style and you
(05:00):
carving out your own stamp, yourlook and your vibe, because the
more you that you are, theeasier it's going to be for you
to attract the right clients.
But I loved doing this class.
You can get my class as part oftheir online retreat and
there's like 26 instructors, soyou're going to learn a lot and
(05:23):
it's a really good deal, youguys.
So today it is officially onsale.
Some of you guys signed up forearly bird pricing and so lucky
you if you did Also today.
The other part of thisannouncement is that they're
announcing the winner of thegiveaway.
So if you didn't enter that,it's too late, but the winners
(05:43):
are going to be announced todayand I also have a winner, so you
can win a seat directly fromMilky Way that you had to have
registered for, but you also aregoing to win one from me and to
do that there is a whole othersubset of that contest.
So, again, that winner is goingto be announced as well.
So both winners announced today.
(06:05):
So, if you entered, make sureyou watch your DMs today,
because that's how we're goingto be letting you know my winner
, and I believe Milky Way isgoing to be emailing that winner
as well.
So head over to the link thatyou can find below in the show
notes for the Milky Way onlineretreat.
Sign up for it.
You're going to learn a ton andI am so excited to share this
(06:28):
session with you guys.
It was a gorgeous day in Malibuwhen we shot it.
If you've ever wanted to knowhow I use my reflector because
I'm not an OCF girl I don't loveit, it's not my thing.
I use a giant reflector.
I love natural light.
If you've ever wanted to watchme shoot, learn how I
communicate and direct myclients, use the big reflector
(06:50):
and then also edit my images,now is your chance.
All right, let's talk abouttoday's episode and our amazing
guest.
I have Anubhie Tonkin on todayand she is the host of the this
Can't Be that Hard podcast.
That's a business podcast forphotographers and she mainly
focuses on things likesustainability, profitability
(07:10):
and systems.
Over there, annamie's secretsuperpower is cutting through
the confusion to give you theseactionable, step-by-step
strategies and systems that aregoing to help you build a
business that reflects yourvalues, serves your needs and
also thrills your clients.
So if you don't already, listento this Can't Be that Hard you
(07:31):
really should.
It's an amazing podcast, forphotographers especially, but I
just love her vibe.
We have so much in common.
We're speaking about alignmenttoday, and I know that topic can
seem a little woo-woo to a lotof you guys, but Anami breaks it
down into some super actionablesteps, actually, and she
(07:54):
teaches it in a pretty specificway.
So you're going to want to takenotes and I know you're going
to get a ton out of this episode, so let's dive in.
Hey, annamie, thank you so muchfor being here today.
I'm really excited about thisconversation because alignment
is something that I'm veryfamiliar with.
I mean, I feel like you knowyou and I both have a similar
(08:16):
space.
We work with a lot of obviouslyphotographers, and we have the
same desire for them, I think,which is to be profitable
without losing their minds,right?
So let's just kind of jump intothis alignment.
What do you feel like.
Well, first of all, whathappens when we're not right and
I know you see a lot of that,I'm sure.
(08:37):
What is the biggest issue thatyou see photographers facing
when they're not in alignment?
Speaker 1 (08:45):
and how do they know?
Well, I think I just want tokind of back it up to the fact
that, like, here we are on triedand true, the dash of woo, like
alignment is one of thosephrases that gets tossed around
and can be, I think, kind ofmisconstrued as something on the
woo end of the spectrum.
(09:06):
Like, to me, alignment is areal and very tangible, very
diagnosable misalignment is verydiagnosable in someone's
business.
The problem is I don't think wetalk about it very tangibly
very often.
So somebody will say I feel outof alignment, like something
doesn't feel like it's working.
(09:26):
But they don't really know whatto do with that.
Because of course, especiallyas solopreneurs most of us are,
and you know people who are busywearing all the different hats
to try and figure out, like,what part of that isn't working
is often kind of a crapshoot atbest and then, you know, more
often than not just gets kind ofignored altogether.
(09:48):
The first time that alignmentreally became, you know and of
course I'm a visual person, yeah, the first time that it became
really clear to me like oh, thisis, this is actually a thing,
is one day I was playing with awater bottle like a Nalgene and
I was trying to get the top onand you know it had gone through
the dishwasher one too manytimes or whatever the problem
(10:09):
was.
And I was trying to get the topon and it wouldn't.
It's like I could just feelthat it was not lining up
correctly and and I was like,well, I can't.
You know, I can't use thisbottle, I can't put it in my gym
bag because it's going to leakall over the place.
I don't trust this bottle,basically.
And that all kind of clickedfor me and I was like, oh,
(10:31):
that's where an alignment versusmisalignment in a business is
very much the same.
So if you've got something off,if there is, you know, if those
whatever they're called threadsdon't quite line up, you are not
only going to be able to feelit in your own business, but it
(10:53):
actually is apparent to thepeople who are, you know, out
there searching for aphotographer or, you know,
looking to hire.
I mean, we can take this wayoutside of the photography space
.
But, um, you know, if you go tosomebody's website, let's say
um, and they're, you know, it'slike their pictures are really
beautiful but their words justaren't really matching up with
(11:17):
what you know, it's like they'vegot these really dreamy photos
and then everything on in theircopy is real, cut and dried or
um, sort of shortened to thepoint or something like that.
It's going to feel weird andyou're not going to say like
this is why this doesn't seemright to me.
Usually we make those decisionsso subconsciously, but that's
(11:38):
going to happen, and so on theprovider end of things.
On the service provider end ofthings.
You're sitting there and let'ssay that the issue in your
business is that you're notgetting enough inquiries and
you're saying I don't knowwhat's wrong.
I don't know what's wrong.
I feel like I'm doing all thethings I'm posting to Instagram
eight times a day, whatever, andit is very difficult to be
objective about our ownbusinesses, but all of those
(12:01):
things are so, so, so important.
And, as I don't know, asbusiness owners, I think the
first thing that we do whenwe're not getting inquiries or
when we're getting people whocall us and say OK, thanks, but
no thanks, is we immediatelyturn to my prices are too high,
Like that's the point offriction.
That is easy to sort of see.
(12:21):
It's actually easy for someoneto say that that's the problem,
even if that's not really theproblem.
I mean, I'm sure you've hadexperiences like this where I
had somebody who initially waslike, well, I think your prices
are too high, I'm not sure, I'mnot sure.
And then they roll up to thesession in their like his and
hers Teslas or something, andI'm like what is happening right
now, like this is yeah, yeah,that was clearly just code, for
(12:45):
I'm not sure.
I'm gonna have to think aboutit.
And you know, of course, moneycan be the issue, but there are
so many other little placeswhere that misalignment can can
be the bigger issues.
So the first thing that I liketo talk about when I'm talking
about alignment is that this isa real thing.
It is a uh.
When something is off, you canfeel it, your clients can feel
it, your clients can feel it,and it causes this breakdown in
(13:06):
trust that can be reallydifficult to overcome.
But then I feel like thequestion is OK, great, so
something's out of alignment.
What do I do with that?
Right, yeah, does that all makesense?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, but I feel like too and you probably see this a
lot as well, but a lot ofphotographers, we get so close
to it as well and we are so likeoverwhelmed by all the things
and we have like the crazyamazing brains and so we don't
know.
Like, yes, we know something isnot in alignment, we know
(13:41):
something is off, but we're soclose to it that we either can't
see it because it's our ownstuff.
You know how that goes.
Like you're always much betterat you know pinpointing what
other people really need.
So how do you at that point,what do you suggest?
Like you know, as far asprioritizing or like looking at,
(14:04):
okay, where is thismisalignment coming from?
Obviously, it's always helpfulif you've got somebody somebody
else's eyes on it right and likethat's why people come to
people like us.
But if you're just sort of liketrying to assess that on your
own as like a listener out there, what are some of the things
that you kind of want to belooking at?
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Great question.
So that was my next question.
Once I kind of realized thatwas like, okay, great, so now
what?
And for me, I I am like a superchecklist person.
I need, you know, give me aframework to work within, and
then I'm good.
And so I put together thisframework that actually, you
know, it was one of those whereI kind of I moved through that
(14:46):
process and then I turned aroundand said, ok, what did I just
do?
Like, how did that, how didthose pieces come together?
And I was able to put ittogether in a I'm.
I love alliteration and so I'malways like, how can I make this
memorable?
So I came up with these fiveP's.
You know words that begin withP, p's, you know words that
(15:07):
begin with P, and that to me,really in this particular order,
is a great way to think aboutthe alignment in your business.
But it is important that youtake them in order.
So the number one thing in anybusiness where you are, you know
, you're a solopreneur,especially a creative
solopreneur like it has to be,like the foundation has to be
built on your preferences.
So you have to build a businessthat you're excited about, that
(15:30):
you are, you know, and that canbe.
It can look like a lot ofdifferent things.
It can be the people thatyou're working with.
It can be the type of servicethat you provide, whether it's
like really fancy and high touch, or whether it's like you're
serving people who are not ableto pay as much but you're doing
like tons and tons of minisessions.
Or you know, you can build aprofitable business a whole
(15:51):
bunch of different ways.
But you have to first addresslike what is it that I want in
my life?
Do do I want all the glitterand sparkles?
Do I want something a littlemore down to earth?
Do I want to be working outside?
Do I want to be working inpeople's homes?
Do I want to be working withinfants, toddlers, married
couples?
You know like the iterationsare endless.
(16:12):
And then there's the whole likedo you want to have a very kind
of low key, individual personbusiness?
Do you want to run like astudio where you're managing
multiple photographers and likea sales team?
And there are all differentanswers to those questions.
None of them are right or wrong.
It's just a matter of assessingkind of who you are and you know
(16:34):
why you wanted to turn thisthing that you loved doing into
a business in the first place.
And sometimes we, you know, westart the business and then
we're like, oh, I don't likethis and that's OK.
We develop those preferencesover time.
We try things on for size.
Preferences are shifting allthe time.
So it's good to come back tothat, even if you've been in
business for a long, long time,especially if you feel like
(16:55):
something's out of alignment,like maybe you're doing
something that you were excitedabout five years ago and now
you're just phoning it in.
People can feel that, right,yeah.
So it all starts withpreferences.
And then the counterpart topreferences is your parameters.
So your parameters are kind ofwhere your fantasy business
collides with the reality ofyour world.
(17:17):
So I think about parameters interms of both the resources that
you have at your disposal, solike your time, your money, the
money you need to make and thenalso your restrictions.
So again, the restrictions onyour time, the restrictions on
maybe one of your resources isthat you have this great extra
room in your house that you candedicate to being a studio, but
(17:40):
maybe you don't have thatresource, so you're restricted
to working on location for thetime being, or whatever the case
may be gear your ability toafford various things in your
business like.
Those are realities that weshould all pay attention to.
It's good to know first whatyour preferences are so that if
(18:00):
they are outsized in comparisonto your resources, then you can
work toward those.
But those two things really dohave to be taken into account
when you set up your businessand design your business model.
So those are the first two.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Does that sound right to you?
Yeah, so let's go back topreferences just for a second,
because, yes, I feel like goback to preferences just for a
second, because, yes, I feellike you know, there's a lot of
talk and and you know, wedefinitely will sort of probably
get there a little bit too.
But you know, we're always kindof talking about, like speaking
to your target client andthings like that, but people
(18:35):
don't understand that it reallydoes start with you, right, your
resonance, and and there's alot of different ways.
I think that we can sort ofpackage that.
I guess One of the ways that Italk about it is resonance, you
know, because it is it's likeyour vibe does definitely
attract your tribe, but thatdoesn't necessarily mean that
(18:56):
you are specifically making thisfor people just like you.
No, that's not.
No, that's not the deal.
However, you have to feel goodabout it, right?
Because if you don't feel goodabout it, right?
Because if you don't feel goodabout it and that's what I see a
lot of photographers doing is,you know, they probably start
shooting a lot of differenttypes of niches, genres within
(19:16):
photography, because that's sortof what you do when you're
learning and you're growing andthen, before they know it,
they're like really bogged downand they didn't take a second to
adjust for that growth.
And they have so many differentthings on the docket and
they're like, wait a minute, Idon't even really like doing
that anymore and they you knowwhat I mean.
So just taking a minute to havethat intentional thought and
(19:40):
not just like unconsciously viberight.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Like, just be like letting it go.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
You got to take a second.
So if you've been in businessfor a long time, right, and if
you feel like something's off,start there, because there's a
very good chance that you mayhave lost your love of it a
little bit, and that's okay.
And that's something that Ifeel like maybe some people even
might need a little permissionto feel about.
(20:11):
Right, because, like, one thingfor certain for me from the
get-go was I do not want tophotograph newborns.
That is not in alignment with meright, but like I did other
things and then for a few yearslater I was like you know what
no no, no, no, no.
Seniors that's really reallywhere I find the most joy and
(20:34):
it's really important to justreally follow that joy.
So I hope that you guys hearthat.
So I wanted to just make surewe highlighted that, because
following the joy, when you feelgood about it, like it, makes
that like such a huge difference.
And then the parameters part,okay.
So that's something I feel likea lot of people do get kind of
(20:56):
stuck in too right, because itcan be outside of our creativity
maybe a little bit, and it'snot as fun necessarily to think
about that kind of stuff.
So you can gamify it right,like just like anything else,
like there's definitelystrategies you can do.
I'm a checklist girl too, so Idefinitely am in line with that,
and that's one of the thingsthat I do is I sort of, like you
(21:18):
know, have to sort of writethings down so I can have like
that visual also of in realityin this, like reality world.
Yes, like ideally, this waswhat I would like, but I'm not
there right now.
So what am I actually workingwith?
Right?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
And there are so many ways that, as creatives, we're
able to say well, you know, if Iwon the lottery, this is how I
would do this.
But here's, you know, here's myreality right now.
So I'm going to build abusiness that is in alignment
with that future reality andsort of puts me on the right
path to that, because that'salso going to keep me motivated
(21:55):
and excited and sort of talkingto the right people.
You know it all feeds the samething and so that's all really
good.
But in order to kind of setthat North Star and aim toward
that goal, you really do have tobe relatively clear on where it
is you're trying to go.
It's not just like I'm going tomove forward and you know we'll
(22:18):
see blindly sort of stumblearound.
You can do that.
I did that for a long time itdoesn't work too well.
It doesn't.
And the thing is, and I do.
I love the fact that you madespace for the, for the reality.
That is like we all start thereand you kind of have to.
I mean, there are very few,certainly, photographers who
start a business, who have like.
(22:39):
This is exactly what I'm goingto do because, most of us are
not.
you know, we're not coming intothis as entrepreneurs, we're
coming into it as artists andthen we just kind of figure the
rest of it out.
So there's going to be a bit ofblind stumbling around and
that's actually kind of figurethe rest of it out.
So there's going to be a bit ofblind stumbling around, and
that's actually kind of abeautiful thing, as long as you
don't overstay your welcome interms of just like because
that'll you know that'll burnyou out really quickly.
(23:00):
So exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, but knowing where you want to go, that's
like that's, that's like yousaid the North Star you can't
like.
It's just like a GPS.
Yeah, like, just like a GPS.
Yeah, you know, if you don'tknow where you're going I mean
even before GPS, like for thoseof us who remember those days
you still looked at a map youknow you still had to plan out
your journey from yourdestination.
So, knowing where you actuallywant to be, where you want to
(23:23):
end up, having that clarity, I'mreally big on that.
So I love this so far.
Okay, let's keep going.
What's?
the next P.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
So once you kind of have that sense of those two
things, then I encourage peopleto kind of pause and figure out.
So I should make this like thesix Ps pause and in that space I
want you to sort of think basedon my preferences and
parameters.
There's a spectrum.
So it's not this is not like athis or that question, but if
(23:53):
you imagine the spectrum andwe'll talk about it in the
restaurant world of like fastfood all the way up to tweezer
food, for you know, 18 coursetasting menu, whatever those are
restaurants, that there arerestaurants there and there and
at every single place along theway in between, and all of them
(24:14):
will fill your belly over thecourse of you know some amount
of time and they can all besuccessful if they are in
alignment.
So you know McDonald's isn'toffering an 18 course tasting
menu and whatever the you knowthe super high-end restaurant
isn't like great.
Do you want to supersize that?
(24:34):
Like those?
That would be like an instanceof major, egregious misalignment
.
So you may be the tweezer foodplace, you may be the fast food
place, but chances are you'resomewhere in between.
You are like well, I don'treally want to serve the most
difficult high end Like theyneed everything Perfect, perfect
(24:55):
, perfect, perfect.
There are people out there whodo that and that's great, it's
not me.
And then there are people outthere who are running you know
what is essentially like a likea glamour shots.
And glamour shots is actually agreat example from the old days
because they I looked it up onetime they at their peak were
making something like a billiondollars a year as a company
(25:19):
because they had really dialedin this like one simple message
and this one simple offer andthey were able to like, upsell
and do all this stuff on theback end, but they were bringing
a ton of people in so very highvolume at very quick rates, and
so that is like that perfectexample of that.
Most of us are going to besomewhere in between, at which
(25:41):
point you have to think like,okay, I'm not competing on being
the most schmancy, fancy thing.
I'm also not competing on beingthe cheapest or like the
fastest or whatever.
I'm somewhere in between.
So what is my special thingthat I bring?
Also not competing on being thecheapest or like the fastest or
whatever, I'm somewhere inbetween.
So what is my special thingthat I bring to the table?
That's kind of that pause placein the middle.
But once you've got that and youget really clear on that
(26:04):
because it is really importantto have clarity on like you know
, why should somebody hire you?
That's to me, that's theformula for figuring out where
that all comes together.
And then from there come yourfinal three Ps and that is your
product, your pricing and yourpolicies.
So your product is just youroffer, but it can also be actual
(26:25):
product.
So if you sell prints andalbums and all that sort of
thing, those should be inalignment with what it is that
you're kind of putting out therein the world.
Again, if you're up on thetweezer food end of things, you
really probably shouldn't beselling like refrigerator
magnets of the photos thatyou're.
You know what I mean, likethere's a branding piece to that
(26:45):
and actually branding fallsvery much into this product.
Like you want to think abouthow you're presenting your
products and what your websitelooks like and all that sort of
stuff really comes from whereyou fall on that spectrum.
So your product and then, ofcourse, once you've got that,
your pricing should fall rightin line.
Unfortunately, one of thebiggest mistakes that I see with
(27:08):
photographers typically newerphotographers their preference
is to run a business toward thehigher end, delivering more high
touch service, and eventuallythey tell themselves I will
charge more, but right now Idon't feel comfortable charging
that much.
So I'm going to deliver thatservice and I'm going to sell
those products, but I'm going toput really low prices on them.
(27:31):
And two things happen there.
Number one, of course that'snot profitable, and so you very
quickly start to feel burned outabout it.
But from the client'sperspective it's also out of
alignment.
So they see that and it reeksof you're new and you don't feel
confident in what you'reoffering here.
Like if what you're telling meis true, that you're going to
(27:52):
deliver all this fancy stuff,then this should not be the
price tag.
And so you don't end upattracting the high-end clients.
And you know, if you do getpeople hiring you, they're like
looking to kind of takeadvantage.
And then you probably get a lotof people that you never even
hear from, because they come toyour website and they say this
doesn't again.
It can be subconscious, butthey're like this doesn't make
(28:14):
any sense.
I feel like something's offhere and they bounce.
So products, pricing, and thenpolicies, and policies is kind
of the one that is a littleharder to explain.
But I always say you know, ifyou're at the restaurant with
the tweezer, food, right, yourguest gets up to go to the
bathroom and you fold the napkinto put it back down and every
(28:35):
plate gets cleared and you getnew silverware all the time and
all of those things.
If you're sitting in thedrive-thru, you know they may or
may not even like send outplasticware Like it's not.
It's a totally different thing,and so your policies need to
reflect the rest of it.
(28:55):
If you're serving that higherend thing, your policies are
going to favor your clients.
Maybe you are more than happyto sign an NDA and never share
any of your photos with you know80% of your clients because
they're all Hollywood A-listersand that's fine because they're
paying you 10 grand for theirfamily session or whatever.
But if you're serving a marketwhere they're competing on price
(29:19):
, you know it's going to be likeif you're 10 minutes late to
your session, you have toreschedule and pay, you know, a
new session fee or whatever.
All of those.
You know there's a milliondifferent policies for any
business.
But when you're setting yourpolicies, you're going to be
thinking about like how much issomebody paying?
What kind of an experience arethey getting?
What's the vibe to borrow yourphrase needs to be in alignment
(29:40):
with the policies.
So, I think that if you havethose five things and you're
able to go to your various copyon your website and your social
media presence and the way thatyou correspond with your
potential clients, if all ofthose things are in alignment,
you should feel that and yourclients should be able to feel
that yeah, 100.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
I did a whole episode a while back because I was
obsessed with the show the bear,I don't know if you've watched
it, and I had also just readUnreasonable Hospitality, which
is a fantastic book.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
And, fun fact, the guy who wrote Unreasonable
Hospitality works at arestaurant that I worked in in
my early 20s, which is prettyfun.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
I love that Will Gadara, I love him.
That's so funny because I meanI all through college waited
tables and I mean I worked atSpago and Beverly Hills.
I definitely ran the gamut of,like you know, low end to high
end, like all the, all the yearsthat I waited tables, but I
felt, I really feel like it was,I mean, fantastic training for
(30:46):
life in general, but also forsales, and I didn't realize how
much sales training I wasgetting when I was doing that.
I thought it was just, you know, in college and trying to pay
my bills.
And looking back when I startedmy photography business, I was
like, oh okay, I'm starting tosee this correlation?
This is amazing.
(31:07):
Yeah, I did this whole sort ofepisode on that reflection
because I feel like there's somuch to learn from that and it
really does Like your productsand your policies.
Like you said they do.
They have to be all of tryingto wanting to be this higher end
(31:34):
and provide this amazingservice and go the extra mile
and have this amazing customerservice that you know.
They're probably heard.
That is important, right, butthe pricing is not backing that
up.
It's not an alignment and thereis a big disjoint.
Just recently, I had a mom shecame by the studio to she really
(31:58):
wanted to get senior portraitsfor her daughter and you know
she had a lot of questions.
So I was like, just come by thestudio, like you know, and she
was like, oh perfect, you know,cause I was always saying like
this hop on a call or whatever,but she had like some some
serious questions.
I was like you know what we'rejust, yeah, we just we just need
to sit down, like, if you'rereally serious about doing it,
like, let's just sit downtogether and I'll show you what
(32:19):
this whole thing entails.
And so you know we were talkingand she was looking at all the
albums and stuff, because that'smy, my main product.
My main product that I sell arealbums I sell into every single
client.
My main product that I sell arealbums.
I sell one to every singleclient, and I learned that from
waiting tables because of thespecials every night.
So right, we would have thesespecials.
(32:41):
If you've never worked in arestaurant, especially a
high-end restaurant, you wouldhave these specials every night.
I'm sure if you've been a guestin a restaurant, you know that.
But on the other side of it,there was oftentimes either
contests or things like thatthat the management would do to
try and get their servers tosell more of them.
Well, I'm a super competitiveperson anyway, so I took it upon
(33:03):
myself to want to sell the mostof the specials, but I learned
early on that if I tried to sellall of them, it didn't work.
I had to pick one, and if Ipicked one that I could really
get behind, I sold them.
Like, like, it was the easiestthing in the world and all you
had to do was just be excitedabout it and lean into it.
(33:24):
And it's the same thing withproducts, right?
So, like, that's my thing.
Albums Like.
I am excited about them, I lovethem, I have them all over the
studio, like that's the thing,and so, anyway, I digress.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Oh, no, no, and I could totally like go down this,
this restaurant rabbit hole.
So so far, I same thing.
It wasn't so much contests.
But of course you know, one ofthe things that in high end
restaurants you're trying tosell is wine and high end wine.
And and I same thing, learnedearly on that and at this one
(34:01):
French restaurant with a giantbook that we had, and we did
have a sommelier, but it wasn'talways practical to like call
the sommelier over for everysingle table.
And I knew the certain kind ofperson who didn't.
Necessarily they looked alittle deer in the headlights
when they got in front of thewine list but they didn't want
to look like a jerk in front oftheir guests.
So I go over there and they say, oh, is there anything you
(34:24):
recommend?
And you know I would take intoaccount what they were going to
eat, whatever.
But then it was.
I would pick two bottles and Iwould say, oh, let me tell you
this mini story, like a onesentence story.
This one is amazing, you know,blackberry jam and notes of
spice or whatever, like whatever.
I would say.
So a very brief description,and then be like the winemaker
(34:46):
was in last week and you knowthey were talking about blah,
blah, blah and and if, if youcould just connect it a little
bit that way, narrow it down forpeople?
Man, I sold a lot of high-endwine and didn't even really
think about it as like I'mselling anything at that stage
of my life.
If you had asked me I wouldhave been like, oh, I hate
selling stuff, but I knew thatthey were going to enjoy it and
(35:08):
it was going to elevate theirexperience, to sort of invest a
little bit in a bottle of wine,and everybody at the table was
going to be like, oh, that's sogreat.
And once you sort of get intothat mindset, it works really
well.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Well, you're giving them what they want.
And that's really what sales is,if we really want to get on
that topic for a second.
Like, this isn't about tryingto sell people into something
that they don't want.
They're coming to you and thisis what I tell photographers all
day long.
They're coming to you becausethey were attracted to your work
, so you are giving them whatthey want in a really cool,
(35:43):
exceptional way.
You're just serving them attheir highest potential.
So, like I saw this, this, thisreel the other day of a
photographer who was talkingabout like why do I feel so
guilty about charging my clients?
And there were like thousandsand thousands and thousands of
comments of people saying thesame thing and I was like, oh my
God, you guys, like I get it,but y'all like they are coming
(36:08):
to you for a reason and it istime for you to own that.
So, okay, that's a wholedifferent subject, but let me
get back to my little storyabout the mom, because this does
really sort of like go back towhat we were talking about, that
what I called the gray zone ofthe the really high-end
photographer versus the maybeshoot and burn, you know, lower
(36:29):
price photographer.
There's this middle gray areathat is a death sentence.
Basically, I have seen over andover again because it's not
sustainable, because that iswhere most of them fall, because
they're trying to do too much,like you're saying, but they're
not priced high enough.
And the mom the mom actuallypointed this out to me, like
that was really interesting tome because I've I've seen it in
(36:51):
my business and I've talked toother photographers about it.
But she was kind of lookingthrough all these albums and
she's like okay, so this is areally big investment for us.
She said we really absolutelylove your work, but you know,
it's definitely a big investment.
She goes it's reallyinteresting, there's like you
and then there's like a wholebunch of other really
inexpensive photographers, butthere's nobody like in the
(37:13):
middle.
I'm like, yeah, do you know why?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
And she was like, yeah, that's so interesting.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
I was like they got burnt out and they ran away
because that is not sustainable.
And I was like it's just not.
Like what goes into this, youknow, and I kind of pointed to
the studio.
I was like, yeah, it's a lot.
It's a lot, this is not myhobby, this is my full-time job
and how I support a family offive, you know.
So it's not sustainable.
And she was like, yeah, thatmakes a lot of sense.
You know what I mean.
Like even our clients, you know.
(37:40):
So a lot of that has to do withhow we're educating them and I
know you, you know, sort ofbrought that up a little bit too
, like the copy on your website,your messaging and all of that
has to really be dialed in.
So, those five P's well, sixmaybe, I think right, because
you added pause.
I added pause.
I want to like just highlightthem again real quick and I, you
(38:01):
know, just so that we get areally clear picture for people.
So, so that we get a reallyclear picture for people.
So, preferences, parameters.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
You start with your preferences and parameters.
Yep.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
And then you pause for a minute, and then you pause
, yep, and then it's productsand pricing and your policies.
But does pricing come last, orlike, does it matter, like what?
Speaker 1 (38:19):
do you think I typically those last three can
really kind of move around?
I mean, obviously I think theproducts and pricing kind of
move around.
I mean, obviously I think thethe products and pricing kind of
go together because, especiallyif you're talking about like a
tangible good, there is like aformula for that.
That's just math.
But as far as your markup onyour service and time, I always
(38:42):
say if you are working with lowvolume, you have to mark up
every single part of yourbusiness to probably what will
feel like an uncomfortabledegree, because there is.
You can only take a couple ofclients a week.
I'm you know.
Again, I'm sure that you've hadclients like this.
(39:02):
Early in my business I had aclient who came to me who was a
doctor, who made some commentabout, like you make more per
hour than I do and I, you know,and then in my mind was thinking
right, but I don't work doingthe thing that makes, you know,
an hourly rate like this, 40hours a week I make my money in
little clusters and then therest of the time is I have to
(39:23):
pay myself out of that Exactly.
So anyway, as far as yourquestion policies, I feel like
just comes as a naturalextension of that, and policies
are also one of those thingsthat we're always sort of adding
in our businesses.
You know, something goessideways and you're like time
for a new policy about, aboutthis thing.
So I think that having the restof those kind of guiding
(39:46):
principles in place gives you aframework that you can then use
to build your policy.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
No, that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, and I always, you know,with my coaching students, it
depends on where they are.
Honestly, you know, as you know, like everybody has the space
that they're in already and hastheir own map of the world.
So, you know, we need to kindof like assess all that and take
it into consideration, I think.
But in general, I feel likepricing needs to sort of usually
(40:16):
for me it's not what I startwith put it that way, you know,
like we kind of have to get somegood foundation built and
alignment with these otherthings first, and then, you know
, pricing is going to naturallysort of have to be woven into
that, because it's also thething that most photographers
are trying to sweep under therug.
Nine times out of 10, you know,they know they need to raise
(40:39):
prices just to be sustainable,but they're ignoring it.
It's like, and it's just likeanything else, the more you
ignore it, the bigger it's goingto get the louder it's going to
take on you mentally and alsoon your family, and everybody
(41:10):
has their breaking point, butyou have to really be honest and
assess that, because there's alot of different ways to run a
business.
You don't have to do itspecifically like one particular
person, but what matters isthat you have to be really
honest about where you are andwhere you want to be.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
What you want and what you need.
Yeah, and it is.
I mean, it is superdemoralizing to work so hard and
you know, like with anythingelse, it's always harder in the
beginning.
But it's also harder if you areworking with clients and you're
having to like squeeze everylast dollar because they came to
(41:49):
you, because you were the cheapoption.
You are always hiking uphill.
I'm a big believer that thereare I mean, I agree with you,
there is that I call it the deadzone in the middle zone of
pricing.
That can can be just reallyhard because you're not.
(42:09):
It's like the clients are,they're, they're either trying
to aim one way or the other wayand you're just there standing
in the middle.
Yeah, but it is possible, Ibelieve, to run a successful
business in that zone if you areextremely clear on like, what
it is that differentiates youand you can create that
messaging, because otherwisethey're just going to.
You know it's too easy tocompare on price, but that is
(42:32):
it's a taller order than peoplegive it credit for.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Absolutely Boundaries and your own boundaries, and
that's really what it kind ofcomes down to.
If you're going to do that, yougot to be really clear with
yourself and not let yourselfoff the hook, because that's
usually what ends up happeningbecause of the people pleasing.
That's a whole different topic,but that is a huge thing of why
, especially femalephotographers literally just
like lay themselves across thecoals for their clients Because,
(42:56):
again, they they feel this likeperceived guilt.
That's not even happening.
It's like literally coming fromyou.
So, that being said, you haveto be really clear about those
boundaries too.
So that's a really, that's areally good point.
Okay, so I love, I love thislittle roadmap.
I feel like that gave us somereally good perspective and I
(43:18):
know that you know you talkabout this a lot on your own
podcast and everything else thatyou guys do.
So before we kind of like wrapup and I kind of point people in
your direction so that they canget into your world if they
don't know already, because theshow is Tried and True with a
Dash of Woo and we've beentalking a lot about strategy, I
feel like I want to know alittle bit about you personally.
(43:41):
How woo, are you right Like,are you into astrology?
Do you know your human design,like anything like that?
What's what's sort of your takeon that?
Do you, um, do you vibe with it?
Where are you at with?
Speaker 1 (43:53):
it well, somewhere between my restaurant days and
becoming a photographer, I wasactually in midwifery school, so
a lot of people will classifythat as pretty dumb and yeah, I
quit halfway through my master'sprogram to pursue photography,
but that was sort of a big pieceof my background.
(44:17):
And then, yeah, I mean I love agood Enneagram and everything
else.
It really is pretty funny how,like, I'm very practical in my
life and I look at things in avery practical way, but I really
enjoy a lot of things that Ithink some people find to be
pretty woo, so so I'm a bit ofan onion in that way.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Do you have?
Do you know your astrology?
Do you have any Capricorn?
I don't.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
I actually don't know anything about astrology.
One piece of it that like I'vejust never.
Yeah, I mean I know I'm I'm aPisces, but oh, yeah, somebody
asked me what my kids signs wereand I was like I don't know.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Yeah, You've got to have, you've got to.
Pisces makes sense, which iswhy I feel like the flow and
like the opening up to likeother things and being
interested in like the arts andall of that kind of stuff.
But I bet you definitely havesome Virgo or Capricorn
placements in there somewherebecause you do seem very logical
and strategic and like achecklist.
So I'm a Virgo and we definitelylove that stuff.
(45:29):
But Pisces is my sister signand so most of my friends and
close people women, especiallyin my life are Pisces, which is
really interesting.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
So you just went through a birthday season.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Yeah, basically, I mean like they were like okay,
it's your birthday, it's yourbirthday, yeah, yeah, so, but
it's super fun.
But yeah, I love the wholemidwife thing.
I, uh, I did natural childbirth with a midwife for my
first son 25 years ago, beforeit was, you know, when everybody
thought it was really crazycrazy.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
I know that I, my kids, were both born with
midwives as well, and I I got alot of the side eye for that as
as well.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
But I love it Very cool.
Well, thank you so much forsharing all of this with us
today.
Where can people where do youprefer people connect with you?
We'll list everything in theshow notes, but what?
Where's your preference orpeople find you?
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Sure, we'll start with my preferences.
Yes, actually.
Well, let me just reallyquickly say, if this is
something that you're interestedin, like sort of you know, if
you feel like maybe there's analignment issue in your business
and you are interested, I dohave.
It's like an eight questionquiz.
It's super simple and fun aboutyour ideal business model.
(46:43):
That just kind of taps intothat a little bit.
But and I'll put that on a pagejust for you, so and your
listeners so it's this can't bethat hard.
Dot com slash Renee, and thenand then everything else is this
can't be that hard.
My podcast is called this Can'tBe that Hard.
The website is this Can't Bethat Hard.
That's my Instagram, all thethings.
So I would love to connectFantastic.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
OK, yeah, Iall go do that and thank you again so much
.
It was really great to finallymeet you virtually.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
It was a pleasure and I definitely feel like we, our
stars, are aligned in this way.
I can't wait to nerd out aboutrestaurant stuff again sometimes
.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Yeah, awesome, okay, all right, have a great day,
amazing, right, okay, alignmenthow to find yours, how to know
when you're out of it.
I know that there's really goodtakeaways from you guys, so
don't forget the framework thatshe goes over the preferences,
the parameters, the products,the pricing, the policies.
(47:41):
Okay, make it easy for yourself.
Outline it.
Make it easy for yourself,outline it.
Really, just kind of sit withthis and figure out how can I
make my business feel morealigned and how impactful am I
being with my intention behindit.
So some really good stuff tothink about.
(48:02):
Like I said before, really goodactionable steps as well.
So I would love to know yourtakeaway on this episode.
As always, please hit me upover on Instagram and if you
want to share about this on yourInstagram, that would be
amazing.
Tag both of us so that we cansee it and give you a shout out.
(48:24):
It's always really important forme to know, like, what you guys
are thinking about theseepisodes and how they affect you
.
So the best way to do that isfor you to share about it and
then tag me.
And if you want to take it astep further, obviously, you
know, leaving a review would bethe coolest thing ever.
You can do that super easy atratethispodcastcom slash.
(48:44):
Renee Bowen.
Review reviews are always soappreciated and of course, it
does a lot for us littlepodcasters as well, because it
gets us in front of new peopleand it also helps me be able to
source really amazing guests foryou guys so that I can continue
bringing you a lot of free,valuable, incredible resources
(49:07):
for both strategy systems andyour mindset.
Have an amazing week.
It means the world to me thatyou spent a little time with me
here today and I can't wait toshare more time with you again
soon.
Love you, bye.
you are always hiking uphill.
I'm a big believer that thereare.
I mean, I agree with you.
There is that I call it thedead zone in the middle.
But the um, there is that weirdmid middle zone, uh, of pricing
that can can be just reallyhard, cause you're not.
It's like the clients are,they're, they're either trying
to aim one way or the other wayand you're just there standing
(00:21):
in the middle.
But it is possible, I believe,to run a successful business in
that zone if you are extremelyclear on what it is that
differentiates you and you cancreate that messaging, because
otherwise it's too easy tocompare on price.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Welcome to Tried and True with a 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 tothe show.
(01:06):
I'm Renee Bowen, your host.
Thanks for joining me here onTried and True with a Dash of
Woo, and I have two reallyimportant announcements and then
we'll get to today's show thatyou are going to absolutely love
.
I have a phenomenal guest foryou, but real quick.
My first announcement is thatif you are in my free Facebook
group for high school seniorphotographers it's literally
(01:27):
called that you can find thelink for it below in the show
notes as well.
If you are already a memberthere or if you want to be, just
join us real quick, because Iam hosting a live this morning
at 9 am.
Okay, you guys, if you arestruggling with your finances
and you just aren't organized,or you don't know what to do, or
(01:49):
you just really need someguidance, you want to tune into
this Facebook Live Again, 9amPacific time inside my Facebook
group.
The link is right below theshow notes.
Hop in there.
We'll do our best to get youadmitted as soon as possible so
that you can join us, live andask questions, but I have my
(02:09):
friend, perry from Found.
Found is an amazing resourcethat I recently found that I
want to introduce you to, buttoday we are specifically
talking about the five majorfinancial mistakes that we see
creative entrepreneurs make andhow to avoid them.
Essentially, this is for you ifyou have ever felt, or you
(02:30):
currently feel, that it's reallytough to juggle your creative
work with the finances part ofyour business.
It can be a lot, and I've seenunder the hood of a lot of
photography businesses over theyears.
So there's some common mistakesthat I see you guys making and,
more importantly, I want tohighlight them so that you can
(02:52):
avoid them or fix them if you'vealready made them.
And again, I will be joined byPerry from Found, which is an
all-in-one banking app for theself-employed, for the creative
an all-in-one banking app forthe self-employed, for the
creative and he's going to besharing some tools as well to
help us in our financialmanagement, to make it way
(03:12):
easier than it probably is foryou right now.
Found offers smart businessbanking and powerful,
easy-to-use tools to makebookkeeping, taxes and invoicing
simpler than ever.
So after you listen to thisepisode, if it's bright and
early for you, head over to thelive session in the Facebook
group so that you can uncoverthose common financial pitfalls
(03:34):
that many of us fall into anddiscuss some simple, actionable
steps that you can take to getthose finances in check and make
you just feel more empowered.
So that is the firstannouncement.
The second announcement is thatyou might have seen on my
Instagram or if you're on mymailing list that I am a speaker
(03:56):
at this year's Milky Way onlineretreat, which is really big,
because I normally don't createcourses and programs for other
platforms other than my own, butI absolutely love the Milky Way
.
I love Lisa and just her wholevibe and what they've created
with her platform.
(04:17):
I just love and I know a lot ofyou guys love her and love the
Milky Way as well.
So when she asked me to be apart of it as the senior
photographer educator, I saidabsolutely, sign me up so you
will get to shoot with me andedit with me a whole session.
It's all done for you.
(04:38):
You can watch me, you can hearme, see how I pose and I prompt.
The title of it is basicallyeditorial posing and lighting
for Gen Z, because we know thatour Gen Z senior clients are way
more savvy.
They want a certain sort oflook about their images and
again, it's all about youfinding your style and you
(05:00):
carving out your own stamp, yourlook and your vibe, because the
more you that you are, theeasier it's going to be for you
to attract the right clients.
But I loved doing this class.
You can get my class as part oftheir online retreat and
there's like 26 instructors, soyou're going to learn a lot and
(05:23):
it's a really good deal, youguys.
So today it is officially onsale.
Some of you guys signed up forearly bird pricing and so lucky
you if you did Also today.
The other part of thisannouncement is that they're
announcing the winner of thegiveaway.
So if you didn't enter that,it's too late, but the winners
(05:43):
are going to be announced todayand I also have a winner, so you
can win a seat directly fromMilky Way that you had to have
registered for, but you also aregoing to win one from me and to
do that there is a whole othersubset of that contest.
So, again, that winner is goingto be announced as well.
So both winners announced today.
(06:05):
So, if you entered, make sureyou watch your DMs today,
because that's how we're goingto be letting you know my winner
, and I believe Milky Way isgoing to be emailing that winner
as well.
So head over to the link thatyou can find below in the show
notes for the Milky Way onlineretreat.
Sign up for it.
You're going to learn a ton andI am so excited to share this
(06:28):
session with you guys.
It was a gorgeous day in Malibuwhen we shot it.
If you've ever wanted to knowhow I use my reflector because
I'm not an OCF girl I don't loveit, it's not my thing.
I use a giant reflector.
I love natural light.
If you've ever wanted to watchme shoot, learn how I
communicate and direct myclients, use the big reflector
(06:50):
and then also edit my images,now is your chance.
All right, let's talk abouttoday's episode and our amazing
guest.
I have Anubhie Tonkin on todayand she is the host of the this
Can't Be that Hard podcast.
That's a business podcast forphotographers and she mainly
focuses on things likesustainability, profitability
(07:10):
and systems.
Over there, annamie's secretsuperpower is cutting through
the confusion to give you theseactionable, step-by-step
strategies and systems that aregoing to help you build a
business that reflects yourvalues, serves your needs and
also thrills your clients.
So if you don't already, listento this Can't Be that Hard you
(07:31):
really should.
It's an amazing podcast, forphotographers especially, but I
just love her vibe.
We have so much in common.
We're speaking about alignmenttoday, and I know that topic can
seem a little woo-woo to a lotof you guys, but Anami breaks it
down into some super actionablesteps, actually, and she
(07:54):
teaches it in a pretty specificway.
So you're going to want to takenotes and I know you're going
to get a ton out of this episode, so let's dive in.
Hey, annamie, thank you so muchfor being here today.
I'm really excited about thisconversation because alignment
is something that I'm veryfamiliar with.
I mean, I feel like you knowyou and I both have a similar
(08:16):
space.
We work with a lot of obviouslyphotographers, and we have the
same desire for them, I think,which is to be profitable
without losing their minds,right?
So let's just kind of jump intothis alignment.
What do you feel like.
Well, first of all, whathappens when we're not right and
I know you see a lot of that,I'm sure.
(08:37):
What is the biggest issue thatyou see photographers facing
when they're not in alignment?
Speaker 1 (08:45):
and how do they know?
Well, I think I just want tokind of back it up to the fact
that, like, here we are on triedand true, the dash of woo, like
alignment is one of thosephrases that gets tossed around
and can be, I think, kind ofmisconstrued as something on the
woo end of the spectrum.
(09:06):
Like, to me, alignment is areal and very tangible, very
diagnosable misalignment is verydiagnosable in someone's
business.
The problem is I don't think wetalk about it very tangibly
very often.
So somebody will say I feel outof alignment, like something
doesn't feel like it's working.
(09:26):
But they don't really know whatto do with that.
Because of course, especiallyas solopreneurs most of us are,
and you know people who are busywearing all the different hats
to try and figure out, like,what part of that isn't working
is often kind of a crapshoot atbest and then, you know, more
often than not just gets kind ofignored altogether.
(09:48):
The first time that alignmentreally became, you know and of
course I'm a visual person, yeah, the first time that it became
really clear to me like oh, thisis, this is actually a thing,
is one day I was playing with awater bottle like a Nalgene and
I was trying to get the top onand you know it had gone through
the dishwasher one too manytimes or whatever the problem
(10:09):
was.
And I was trying to get the topon and it wouldn't.
It's like I could just feelthat it was not lining up
correctly and and I was like,well, I can't.
You know, I can't use thisbottle, I can't put it in my gym
bag because it's going to leakall over the place.
I don't trust this bottle,basically.
And that all kind of clickedfor me and I was like, oh,
(10:31):
that's where an alignment versusmisalignment in a business is
very much the same.
So if you've got something off,if there is, you know, if those
whatever they're called threadsdon't quite line up, you are not
only going to be able to feelit in your own business, but it
(10:53):
actually is apparent to thepeople who are, you know, out
there searching for aphotographer or, you know,
looking to hire.
I mean, we can take this wayoutside of the photography space
.
But, um, you know, if you go tosomebody's website, let's say
um, and they're, you know, it'slike their pictures are really
beautiful but their words justaren't really matching up with
(11:17):
what you know, it's like they'vegot these really dreamy photos
and then everything on in theircopy is real, cut and dried or
um, sort of shortened to thepoint or something like that.
It's going to feel weird andyou're not going to say like
this is why this doesn't seemright to me.
Usually we make those decisionsso subconsciously, but that's
(11:38):
going to happen, and so on theprovider end of things.
On the service provider end ofthings.
You're sitting there and let'ssay that the issue in your
business is that you're notgetting enough inquiries and
you're saying I don't knowwhat's wrong.
I don't know what's wrong.
I feel like I'm doing all thethings I'm posting to Instagram
eight times a day, whatever, andit is very difficult to be
objective about our ownbusinesses, but all of those
(12:01):
things are so, so, so important.
And, as I don't know, asbusiness owners, I think the
first thing that we do whenwe're not getting inquiries or
when we're getting people whocall us and say OK, thanks, but
no thanks, is we immediatelyturn to my prices are too high,
Like that's the point offriction.
That is easy to sort of see.
(12:21):
It's actually easy for someoneto say that that's the problem,
even if that's not really theproblem.
I mean, I'm sure you've hadexperiences like this where I
had somebody who initially waslike, well, I think your prices
are too high, I'm not sure, I'mnot sure.
And then they roll up to thesession in their like his and
hers Teslas or something, andI'm like what is happening right
now, like this is yeah, yeah,that was clearly just code, for
(12:45):
I'm not sure.
I'm gonna have to think aboutit.
And you know, of course, moneycan be the issue, but there are
so many other little placeswhere that misalignment can can
be the bigger issues.
So the first thing that I liketo talk about when I'm talking
about alignment is that this isa real thing.
It is a uh.
When something is off, you canfeel it, your clients can feel
it, your clients can feel it,and it causes this breakdown in
(13:06):
trust that can be reallydifficult to overcome.
But then I feel like thequestion is OK, great, so
something's out of alignment.
What do I do with that?
Right, yeah, does that all makesense?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, but I feel like too and you probably see this a
lot as well, but a lot ofphotographers, we get so close
to it as well and we are so likeoverwhelmed by all the things
and we have like the crazyamazing brains and so we don't
know.
Like, yes, we know something isnot in alignment, we know
(13:41):
something is off, but we're soclose to it that we either can't
see it because it's our ownstuff.
You know how that goes.
Like you're always much betterat you know pinpointing what
other people really need.
So how do you at that point,what do you suggest?
Like you know, as far asprioritizing or like looking at,
(14:04):
okay, where is thismisalignment coming from?
Obviously, it's always helpfulif you've got somebody somebody
else's eyes on it right and likethat's why people come to
people like us.
But if you're just sort of liketrying to assess that on your
own as like a listener out there, what are some of the things
that you kind of want to belooking at?
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Great question.
So that was my next question.
Once I kind of realized thatwas like, okay, great, so now
what?
And for me, I I am like a superchecklist person.
I need, you know, give me aframework to work within, and
then I'm good.
And so I put together thisframework that actually, you
know, it was one of those whereI kind of I moved through that
(14:46):
process and then I turned aroundand said, ok, what did I just
do?
Like, how did that, how didthose pieces come together?
And I was able to put ittogether in a I'm.
I love alliteration and so I'malways like, how can I make this
memorable?
So I came up with these fiveP's.
You know words that begin withP, p's, you know words that
(15:07):
begin with P, and that to me,really in this particular order,
is a great way to think aboutthe alignment in your business.
But it is important that youtake them in order.
So the number one thing in anybusiness where you are, you know
, you're a solopreneur,especially a creative
solopreneur like it has to be,like the foundation has to be
built on your preferences.
So you have to build a businessthat you're excited about, that
(15:30):
you are, you know, and that canbe.
It can look like a lot ofdifferent things.
It can be the people thatyou're working with.
It can be the type of servicethat you provide, whether it's
like really fancy and high touch, or whether it's like you're
serving people who are not ableto pay as much but you're doing
like tons and tons of minisessions.
Or you know, you can build aprofitable business a whole
(15:51):
bunch of different ways.
But you have to first addresslike what is it that I want in
my life?
Do do I want all the glitterand sparkles?
Do I want something a littlemore down to earth?
Do I want to be working outside?
Do I want to be working inpeople's homes?
Do I want to be working withinfants, toddlers, married
couples?
You know like the iterationsare endless.
(16:12):
And then there's the whole likedo you want to have a very kind
of low key, individual personbusiness?
Do you want to run like astudio where you're managing
multiple photographers and likea sales team?
And there are all differentanswers to those questions.
None of them are right or wrong.
It's just a matter of assessingkind of who you are and you know
(16:34):
why you wanted to turn thisthing that you loved doing into
a business in the first place.
And sometimes we, you know, westart the business and then
we're like, oh, I don't likethis and that's OK.
We develop those preferencesover time.
We try things on for size.
Preferences are shifting allthe time.
So it's good to come back tothat, even if you've been in
business for a long, long time,especially if you feel like
(16:55):
something's out of alignment,like maybe you're doing
something that you were excitedabout five years ago and now
you're just phoning it in.
People can feel that, right,yeah.
So it all starts withpreferences.
And then the counterpart topreferences is your parameters.
So your parameters are kind ofwhere your fantasy business
collides with the reality ofyour world.
(17:17):
So I think about parameters interms of both the resources that
you have at your disposal, solike your time, your money, the
money you need to make and thenalso your restrictions.
So again, the restrictions onyour time, the restrictions on
maybe one of your resources isthat you have this great extra
room in your house that you candedicate to being a studio, but
(17:40):
maybe you don't have thatresource, so you're restricted
to working on location for thetime being, or whatever the case
may be gear your ability toafford various things in your
business like.
Those are realities that weshould all pay attention to.
It's good to know first whatyour preferences are so that if
(18:00):
they are outsized in comparisonto your resources, then you can
work toward those.
But those two things really dohave to be taken into account
when you set up your businessand design your business model.
So those are the first two.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Does that sound right to you?
Yeah, so let's go back topreferences just for a second,
because, yes, I feel like goback to preferences just for a
second, because, yes, I feellike you know, there's a lot of
talk and and you know, wedefinitely will sort of probably
get there a little bit too.
But you know, we're always kindof talking about, like speaking
to your target client andthings like that, but people
(18:35):
don't understand that it reallydoes start with you, right, your
resonance, and and there's alot of different ways.
I think that we can sort ofpackage that.
I guess One of the ways that Italk about it is resonance, you
know, because it is it's likeyour vibe does definitely
attract your tribe, but thatdoesn't necessarily mean that
(18:56):
you are specifically making thisfor people just like you.
No, that's not.
No, that's not the deal.
However, you have to feel goodabout it, right?
Because if you don't feel goodabout it, right?
Because if you don't feel goodabout it and that's what I see a
lot of photographers doing is,you know, they probably start
shooting a lot of differenttypes of niches, genres within
(19:16):
photography, because that's sortof what you do when you're
learning and you're growing andthen, before they know it,
they're like really bogged downand they didn't take a second to
adjust for that growth.
And they have so many differentthings on the docket and
they're like, wait a minute, Idon't even really like doing
that anymore and they you knowwhat I mean.
So just taking a minute to havethat intentional thought and
(19:40):
not just like unconsciously viberight.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Like, just be like letting it go.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
You got to take a second.
So if you've been in businessfor a long time, right, and if
you feel like something's off,start there, because there's a
very good chance that you mayhave lost your love of it a
little bit, and that's okay.
And that's something that Ifeel like maybe some people even
might need a little permissionto feel about.
(20:11):
Right, because, like, one thingfor certain for me from the
get-go was I do not want tophotograph newborns.
That is not in alignment with meright, but like I did other
things and then for a few yearslater I was like you know what
no no, no, no, no.
Seniors that's really reallywhere I find the most joy and
(20:34):
it's really important to justreally follow that joy.
So I hope that you guys hearthat.
So I wanted to just make surewe highlighted that, because
following the joy, when you feelgood about it, like it, makes
that like such a huge difference.
And then the parameters part,okay.
So that's something I feel likea lot of people do get kind of
(20:56):
stuck in too right, because itcan be outside of our creativity
maybe a little bit, and it'snot as fun necessarily to think
about that kind of stuff.
So you can gamify it right,like just like anything else,
like there's definitelystrategies you can do.
I'm a checklist girl too, so Idefinitely am in line with that,
and that's one of the thingsthat I do is I sort of, like you
(21:18):
know, have to sort of writethings down so I can have like
that visual also of in realityin this, like reality world.
Yes, like ideally, this waswhat I would like, but I'm not
there right now.
So what am I actually workingwith?
Right?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
And there are so many ways that, as creatives, we're
able to say well, you know, if Iwon the lottery, this is how I
would do this.
But here's, you know, here's myreality right now.
So I'm going to build abusiness that is in alignment
with that future reality andsort of puts me on the right
path to that, because that'salso going to keep me motivated
(21:55):
and excited and sort of talkingto the right people.
You know it all feeds the samething and so that's all really
good.
But in order to kind of setthat North Star and aim toward
that goal, you really do have tobe relatively clear on where it
is you're trying to go.
It's not just like I'm going tomove forward and you know we'll
(22:18):
see blindly sort of stumblearound.
You can do that.
I did that for a long time itdoesn't work too well.
It doesn't.
And the thing is, and I do.
I love the fact that you madespace for the, for the reality.
That is like we all start thereand you kind of have to.
I mean, there are very few,certainly, photographers who
start a business, who have like.
(22:39):
This is exactly what I'm goingto do because, most of us are
not.
you know, we're not coming intothis as entrepreneurs, we're
coming into it as artists andthen we just kind of figure the
rest of it out.
So there's going to be a bit ofblind stumbling around and
that's actually kind of figurethe rest of it out.
So there's going to be a bit ofblind stumbling around, and
that's actually kind of abeautiful thing, as long as you
don't overstay your welcome interms of just like because
that'll you know that'll burnyou out really quickly.
(23:00):
So exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, but knowing where you want to go, that's
like that's, that's like yousaid the North Star you can't
like.
It's just like a GPS.
Yeah, like, just like a GPS.
Yeah, you know, if you don'tknow where you're going I mean
even before GPS, like for thoseof us who remember those days
you still looked at a map youknow you still had to plan out
your journey from yourdestination.
So, knowing where you actuallywant to be, where you want to
(23:23):
end up, having that clarity, I'mreally big on that.
So I love this so far.
Okay, let's keep going.
What's?
the next P.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
So once you kind of have that sense of those two
things, then I encourage peopleto kind of pause and figure out.
So I should make this like thesix Ps pause and in that space I
want you to sort of think basedon my preferences and
parameters.
There's a spectrum.
So it's not this is not like athis or that question, but if
(23:53):
you imagine the spectrum andwe'll talk about it in the
restaurant world of like fastfood all the way up to tweezer
food, for you know, 18 coursetasting menu, whatever those are
restaurants, that there arerestaurants there and there and
at every single place along theway in between, and all of them
(24:14):
will fill your belly over thecourse of you know some amount
of time and they can all besuccessful if they are in
alignment.
So you know McDonald's isn'toffering an 18 course tasting
menu and whatever the you knowthe super high-end restaurant
isn't like great.
Do you want to supersize that?
(24:34):
Like those?
That would be like an instanceof major, egregious misalignment
.
So you may be the tweezer foodplace, you may be the fast food
place, but chances are you'resomewhere in between.
You are like well, I don'treally want to serve the most
difficult high end Like theyneed everything Perfect, perfect
(24:55):
, perfect, perfect.
There are people out there whodo that and that's great, it's
not me.
And then there are people outthere who are running you know
what is essentially like a likea glamour shots.
And glamour shots is actually agreat example from the old days
because they I looked it up onetime they at their peak were
making something like a billiondollars a year as a company
(25:19):
because they had really dialedin this like one simple message
and this one simple offer andthey were able to like, upsell
and do all this stuff on theback end, but they were bringing
a ton of people in so very highvolume at very quick rates, and
so that is like that perfectexample of that.
Most of us are going to besomewhere in between, at which
(25:41):
point you have to think like,okay, I'm not competing on being
the most schmancy, fancy thing.
I'm also not competing on beingthe cheapest or like the
fastest or whatever.
I'm somewhere in between.
So what is my special thingthat I bring?
Also not competing on being thecheapest or like the fastest or
whatever, I'm somewhere inbetween.
So what is my special thingthat I bring to the table?
That's kind of that pause placein the middle.
But once you've got that and youget really clear on that
(26:04):
because it is really importantto have clarity on like you know
, why should somebody hire you?
That's to me, that's theformula for figuring out where
that all comes together.
And then from there come yourfinal three Ps and that is your
product, your pricing and yourpolicies.
So your product is just youroffer, but it can also be actual
(26:25):
product.
So if you sell prints andalbums and all that sort of
thing, those should be inalignment with what it is that
you're kind of putting out therein the world.
Again, if you're up on thetweezer food end of things, you
really probably shouldn't beselling like refrigerator
magnets of the photos thatyou're.
You know what I mean, likethere's a branding piece to that
(26:45):
and actually branding fallsvery much into this product.
Like you want to think abouthow you're presenting your
products and what your websitelooks like and all that sort of
stuff really comes from whereyou fall on that spectrum.
So your product and then, ofcourse, once you've got that,
your pricing should fall rightin line.
Unfortunately, one of thebiggest mistakes that I see with
(27:08):
photographers typically newerphotographers their preference
is to run a business toward thehigher end, delivering more high
touch service, and eventuallythey tell themselves I will
charge more, but right now Idon't feel comfortable charging
that much.
So I'm going to deliver thatservice and I'm going to sell
those products, but I'm going toput really low prices on them.
(27:31):
And two things happen there.
Number one, of course that'snot profitable, and so you very
quickly start to feel burned outabout it.
But from the client'sperspective it's also out of
alignment.
So they see that and it reeksof you're new and you don't feel
confident in what you'reoffering here.
Like if what you're telling meis true, that you're going to
(27:52):
deliver all this fancy stuff,then this should not be the
price tag.
And so you don't end upattracting the high-end clients.
And you know, if you do getpeople hiring you, they're like
looking to kind of takeadvantage.
And then you probably get a lotof people that you never even
hear from, because they come toyour website and they say this
doesn't again.
It can be subconscious, butthey're like this doesn't make
(28:14):
any sense.
I feel like something's offhere and they bounce.
So products, pricing, and thenpolicies, and policies is kind
of the one that is a littleharder to explain.
But I always say you know, ifyou're at the restaurant with
the tweezer, food, right, yourguest gets up to go to the
bathroom and you fold the napkinto put it back down and every
(28:35):
plate gets cleared and you getnew silverware all the time and
all of those things.
If you're sitting in thedrive-thru, you know they may or
may not even like send outplasticware Like it's not.
It's a totally different thing,and so your policies need to
reflect the rest of it.
(28:55):
If you're serving that higherend thing, your policies are
going to favor your clients.
Maybe you are more than happyto sign an NDA and never share
any of your photos with you know80% of your clients because
they're all Hollywood A-listersand that's fine because they're
paying you 10 grand for theirfamily session or whatever.
But if you're serving a marketwhere they're competing on price
(29:19):
, you know it's going to be likeif you're 10 minutes late to
your session, you have toreschedule and pay, you know, a
new session fee or whatever.
All of those.
You know there's a milliondifferent policies for any
business.
But when you're setting yourpolicies, you're going to be
thinking about like how much issomebody paying?
What kind of an experience arethey getting?
What's the vibe to borrow yourphrase needs to be in alignment
(29:40):
with the policies.
So, I think that if you havethose five things and you're
able to go to your various copyon your website and your social
media presence and the way thatyou correspond with your
potential clients, if all ofthose things are in alignment,
you should feel that and yourclients should be able to feel
that yeah, 100.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
I did a whole episode a while back because I was
obsessed with the show the bear,I don't know if you've watched
it, and I had also just readUnreasonable Hospitality, which
is a fantastic book.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
And, fun fact, the guy who wrote Unreasonable
Hospitality works at arestaurant that I worked in in
my early 20s, which is prettyfun.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
I love that Will Gadara, I love him.
That's so funny because I meanI all through college waited
tables and I mean I worked atSpago and Beverly Hills.
I definitely ran the gamut of,like you know, low end to high
end, like all the, all the yearsthat I waited tables, but I
felt, I really feel like it was,I mean, fantastic training for
(30:46):
life in general, but also forsales, and I didn't realize how
much sales training I wasgetting when I was doing that.
I thought it was just, you know, in college and trying to pay
my bills.
And looking back when I startedmy photography business, I was
like, oh okay, I'm starting tosee this correlation?
This is amazing.
(31:07):
Yeah, I did this whole sort ofepisode on that reflection
because I feel like there's somuch to learn from that and it
really does Like your productsand your policies.
Like you said they do.
They have to be all of tryingto wanting to be this higher end
(31:34):
and provide this amazingservice and go the extra mile
and have this amazing customerservice that you know.
They're probably heard.
That is important, right, butthe pricing is not backing that
up.
It's not an alignment and thereis a big disjoint.
Just recently, I had a mom shecame by the studio to she really
(31:58):
wanted to get senior portraitsfor her daughter and you know
she had a lot of questions.
So I was like, just come by thestudio, like you know, and she
was like, oh perfect, you know,cause I was always saying like
this hop on a call or whatever,but she had like some some
serious questions.
I was like you know what we'rejust, yeah, we just we just need
to sit down, like, if you'rereally serious about doing it,
like, let's just sit downtogether and I'll show you what
(32:19):
this whole thing entails.
And so you know we were talkingand she was looking at all the
albums and stuff, because that'smy, my main product.
My main product that I sell arealbums I sell into every single
client.
My main product that I sell arealbums.
I sell one to every singleclient, and I learned that from
waiting tables because of thespecials every night.
So right, we would have thesespecials.
(32:41):
If you've never worked in arestaurant, especially a
high-end restaurant, you wouldhave these specials every night.
I'm sure if you've been a guestin a restaurant, you know that.
But on the other side of it,there was oftentimes either
contests or things like thatthat the management would do to
try and get their servers tosell more of them.
Well, I'm a super competitiveperson anyway, so I took it upon
(33:03):
myself to want to sell the mostof the specials, but I learned
early on that if I tried to sellall of them, it didn't work.
I had to pick one, and if Ipicked one that I could really
get behind, I sold them.
Like, like, it was the easiestthing in the world and all you
had to do was just be excitedabout it and lean into it.
(33:24):
And it's the same thing withproducts, right?
So, like, that's my thing.
Albums Like.
I am excited about them, I lovethem, I have them all over the
studio, like that's the thing,and so, anyway, I digress.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Oh, no, no, and I could totally like go down this,
this restaurant rabbit hole.
So so far, I same thing.
It wasn't so much contests.
But of course you know, one ofthe things that in high end
restaurants you're trying tosell is wine and high end wine.
And and I same thing, learnedearly on that and at this one
(34:01):
French restaurant with a giantbook that we had, and we did
have a sommelier, but it wasn'talways practical to like call
the sommelier over for everysingle table.
And I knew the certain kind ofperson who didn't.
Necessarily they looked alittle deer in the headlights
when they got in front of thewine list but they didn't want
to look like a jerk in front oftheir guests.
So I go over there and they say, oh, is there anything you
(34:24):
recommend?
And you know I would take intoaccount what they were going to
eat, whatever.
But then it was.
I would pick two bottles and Iwould say, oh, let me tell you
this mini story, like a onesentence story.
This one is amazing, you know,blackberry jam and notes of
spice or whatever, like whatever.
I would say.
So a very brief description,and then be like the winemaker
(34:46):
was in last week and you knowthey were talking about blah,
blah, blah and and if, if youcould just connect it a little
bit that way, narrow it down forpeople?
Man, I sold a lot of high-endwine and didn't even really
think about it as like I'mselling anything at that stage
of my life.
If you had asked me I wouldhave been like, oh, I hate
selling stuff, but I knew thatthey were going to enjoy it and
(35:08):
it was going to elevate theirexperience, to sort of invest a
little bit in a bottle of wine,and everybody at the table was
going to be like, oh, that's sogreat.
And once you sort of get intothat mindset, it works really
well.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Well, you're giving them what they want.
And that's really what sales is,if we really want to get on
that topic for a second.
Like, this isn't about tryingto sell people into something
that they don't want.
They're coming to you and thisis what I tell photographers all
day long.
They're coming to you becausethey were attracted to your work
, so you are giving them whatthey want in a really cool,
(35:43):
exceptional way.
You're just serving them attheir highest potential.
So, like I saw this, this, thisreel the other day of a
photographer who was talkingabout like why do I feel so
guilty about charging my clients?
And there were like thousandsand thousands and thousands of
comments of people saying thesame thing and I was like, oh my
God, you guys, like I get it,but y'all like they are coming
(36:08):
to you for a reason and it istime for you to own that.
So, okay, that's a wholedifferent subject, but let me
get back to my little storyabout the mom, because this does
really sort of like go back towhat we were talking about, that
what I called the gray zone ofthe the really high-end
photographer versus the maybeshoot and burn, you know, lower
(36:29):
price photographer.
There's this middle gray areathat is a death sentence.
Basically, I have seen over andover again because it's not
sustainable, because that iswhere most of them fall, because
they're trying to do too much,like you're saying, but they're
not priced high enough.
And the mom the mom actuallypointed this out to me, like
that was really interesting tome because I've I've seen it in
(36:51):
my business and I've talked toother photographers about it.
But she was kind of lookingthrough all these albums and
she's like okay, so this is areally big investment for us.
She said we really absolutelylove your work, but you know,
it's definitely a big investment.
She goes it's reallyinteresting, there's like you
and then there's like a wholebunch of other really
inexpensive photographers, butthere's nobody like in the
(37:13):
middle.
I'm like, yeah, do you know why?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
And she was like, yeah, that's so interesting.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
I was like they got burnt out and they ran away
because that is not sustainable.
And I was like it's just not.
Like what goes into this, youknow, and I kind of pointed to
the studio.
I was like, yeah, it's a lot.
It's a lot, this is not myhobby, this is my full-time job
and how I support a family offive, you know.
So it's not sustainable.
And she was like, yeah, thatmakes a lot of sense.
You know what I mean.
Like even our clients, you know.
(37:40):
So a lot of that has to do withhow we're educating them and I
know you, you know, sort ofbrought that up a little bit too
, like the copy on your website,your messaging and all of that
has to really be dialed in.
So, those five P's well, sixmaybe, I think right, because
you added pause.
I added pause.
I want to like just highlightthem again real quick and I, you
(38:01):
know, just so that we get areally clear picture for people.
So, so that we get a reallyclear picture for people.
So, preferences, parameters.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
You start with your preferences and parameters.
Yep.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
And then you pause for a minute, and then you pause
, yep, and then it's productsand pricing and your policies.
But does pricing come last, orlike, does it matter, like what?
Speaker 1 (38:19):
do you think I typically those last three can
really kind of move around?
I mean, obviously I think theproducts and pricing kind of
move around.
I mean, obviously I think thethe products and pricing kind of
go together because, especiallyif you're talking about like a
tangible good, there is like aformula for that.
That's just math.
But as far as your markup onyour service and time, I always
(38:42):
say if you are working with lowvolume, you have to mark up
every single part of yourbusiness to probably what will
feel like an uncomfortabledegree, because there is.
You can only take a couple ofclients a week.
I'm you know.
Again, I'm sure that you've hadclients like this.
(39:02):
Early in my business I had aclient who came to me who was a
doctor, who made some commentabout, like you make more per
hour than I do and I, you know,and then in my mind was thinking
right, but I don't work doingthe thing that makes, you know,
an hourly rate like this, 40hours a week I make my money in
little clusters and then therest of the time is I have to
(39:23):
pay myself out of that Exactly.
So anyway, as far as yourquestion policies, I feel like
just comes as a naturalextension of that, and policies
are also one of those thingsthat we're always sort of adding
in our businesses.
You know, something goessideways and you're like time
for a new policy about, aboutthis thing.
So I think that having the restof those kind of guiding
(39:46):
principles in place gives you aframework that you can then use
to build your policy.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
No, that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, and I always, you know,with my coaching students, it
depends on where they are.
Honestly, you know, as you know, like everybody has the space
that they're in already and hastheir own map of the world.
So, you know, we need to kindof like assess all that and take
it into consideration, I think.
But in general, I feel likepricing needs to sort of usually
(40:16):
for me it's not what I startwith put it that way, you know,
like we kind of have to get somegood foundation built and
alignment with these otherthings first, and then, you know
, pricing is going to naturallysort of have to be woven into
that, because it's also thething that most photographers
are trying to sweep under therug.
Nine times out of 10, you know,they know they need to raise
(40:39):
prices just to be sustainable,but they're ignoring it.
It's like, and it's just likeanything else, the more you
ignore it, the bigger it's goingto get the louder it's going to
take on you mentally and alsoon your family, and everybody
(41:10):
has their breaking point, butyou have to really be honest and
assess that, because there's alot of different ways to run a
business.
You don't have to do itspecifically like one particular
person, but what matters isthat you have to be really
honest about where you are andwhere you want to be.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
What you want and what you need.
Yeah, and it is.
I mean, it is superdemoralizing to work so hard and
you know, like with anythingelse, it's always harder in the
beginning.
But it's also harder if you areworking with clients and you're
having to like squeeze everylast dollar because they came to
(41:49):
you, because you were the cheapoption.
You are always hiking uphill.
I'm a big believer that thereare I mean, I agree with you,
there is that I call it the deadzone in the middle zone of
pricing.
That can can be just reallyhard because you're not.
(42:09):
It's like the clients are,they're, they're either trying
to aim one way or the other wayand you're just there standing
in the middle.
Yeah, but it is possible, Ibelieve, to run a successful
business in that zone if you areextremely clear on like, what
it is that differentiates youand you can create that
messaging, because otherwisethey're just going to.
You know it's too easy tocompare on price, but that is
(42:32):
it's a taller order than peoplegive it credit for.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Absolutely Boundaries and your own boundaries, and
that's really what it kind ofcomes down to.
If you're going to do that, yougot to be really clear with
yourself and not let yourselfoff the hook, because that's
usually what ends up happeningbecause of the people pleasing.
That's a whole different topic,but that is a huge thing of why
, especially femalephotographers literally just
like lay themselves across thecoals for their clients Because,
(42:56):
again, they they feel this likeperceived guilt.
That's not even happening.
It's like literally coming fromyou.
So, that being said, you haveto be really clear about those
boundaries too.
So that's a really, that's areally good point.
Okay, so I love, I love thislittle roadmap.
I feel like that gave us somereally good perspective and I
(43:18):
know that you know you talkabout this a lot on your own
podcast and everything else thatyou guys do.
So before we kind of like wrapup and I kind of point people in
your direction so that they canget into your world if they
don't know already, because theshow is Tried and True with a
Dash of Woo and we've beentalking a lot about strategy, I
feel like I want to know alittle bit about you personally.
(43:41):
How woo, are you right Like,are you into astrology?
Do you know your human design,like anything like that?
What's what's sort of your takeon that?
Do you, um, do you vibe with it?
Where are you at with?
Speaker 1 (43:53):
it well, somewhere between my restaurant days and
becoming a photographer, I wasactually in midwifery school, so
a lot of people will classifythat as pretty dumb and yeah, I
quit halfway through my master'sprogram to pursue photography,
but that was sort of a big pieceof my background.
(44:17):
And then, yeah, I mean I love agood Enneagram and everything
else.
It really is pretty funny how,like, I'm very practical in my
life and I look at things in avery practical way, but I really
enjoy a lot of things that Ithink some people find to be
pretty woo, so so I'm a bit ofan onion in that way.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Do you have?
Do you know your astrology?
Do you have any Capricorn?
I don't.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
I actually don't know anything about astrology.
One piece of it that like I'vejust never.
Yeah, I mean I know I'm I'm aPisces, but oh, yeah, somebody
asked me what my kids signs wereand I was like I don't know.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Yeah, You've got to have, you've got to.
Pisces makes sense, which iswhy I feel like the flow and
like the opening up to likeother things and being
interested in like the arts andall of that kind of stuff.
But I bet you definitely havesome Virgo or Capricorn
placements in there somewherebecause you do seem very logical
and strategic and like achecklist.
So I'm a Virgo and we definitelylove that stuff.
(45:29):
But Pisces is my sister signand so most of my friends and
close people women, especiallyin my life are Pisces, which is
really interesting.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
So you just went through a birthday season.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Yeah, basically, I mean like they were like okay,
it's your birthday, it's yourbirthday, yeah, yeah, so, but
it's super fun.
But yeah, I love the wholemidwife thing.
I, uh, I did natural childbirth with a midwife for my
first son 25 years ago, beforeit was, you know, when everybody
thought it was really crazycrazy.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
I know that I, my kids, were both born with
midwives as well, and I I got alot of the side eye for that as
as well.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
But I love it Very cool.
Well, thank you so much forsharing all of this with us
today.
Where can people where do youprefer people connect with you?
We'll list everything in theshow notes, but what?
Where's your preference orpeople find you?
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Sure, we'll start with my preferences.
Yes, actually.
Well, let me just reallyquickly say, if this is
something that you're interestedin, like sort of you know, if
you feel like maybe there's analignment issue in your business
and you are interested, I dohave.
It's like an eight questionquiz.
It's super simple and fun aboutyour ideal business model.
(46:43):
That just kind of taps intothat a little bit.
But and I'll put that on a pagejust for you, so and your
listeners so it's this can't bethat hard.
Dot com slash Renee, and thenand then everything else is this
can't be that hard.
My podcast is called this Can'tBe that Hard.
The website is this Can't Bethat Hard.
That's my Instagram, all thethings.
So I would love to connectFantastic.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
OK, yeah, Iall go do that and thank you again so much
.
It was really great to finallymeet you virtually.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
It was a pleasure and I definitely feel like we, our
stars, are aligned in this way.
I can't wait to nerd out aboutrestaurant stuff again sometimes
.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Yeah, awesome, okay, all right, have a great day,
amazing, right, okay, alignmenthow to find yours, how to know
when you're out of it.
I know that there's really goodtakeaways from you guys, so
don't forget the framework thatshe goes over the preferences,
the parameters, the products,the pricing, the policies.
(47:41):
Okay, make it easy for yourself.
Outline it.
Make it easy for yourself,outline it.
Really, just kind of sit withthis and figure out how can I
make my business feel morealigned and how impactful am I
being with my intention behindit.
So some really good stuff tothink about.
(48:02):
Like I said before, really goodactionable steps as well.
So I would love to know yourtakeaway on this episode.
As always, please hit me upover on Instagram and if you
want to share about this on yourInstagram, that would be
amazing.
Tag both of us so that we cansee it and give you a shout out.
(48:24):
It's always really important forme to know, like, what you guys
are thinking about theseepisodes and how they affect you
.
So the best way to do that isfor you to share about it and
then tag me.
And if you want to take it astep further, obviously, you
know, leaving a review would bethe coolest thing ever.
You can do that super easy atratethispodcastcom slash.
(48:44):
Renee Bowen.
Review reviews are always soappreciated and of course, it
does a lot for us littlepodcasters as well, because it
gets us in front of new peopleand it also helps me be able to
source really amazing guests foryou guys so that I can continue
bringing you a lot of free,valuable, incredible resources
(49:07):
for both strategy systems andyour mindset.
Have an amazing week.
It means the world to me thatyou spent a little time with me
here today and I can't wait toshare more time with you again
soon.
Love you, bye.
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