Make More Money in Photography
Change one thing to dramatically improve your photography business today.
Make More Money in Photography
Today we’re going to cover the one key thing that will determine how successful your photography business will be. I know that’s a bold statement but I learned this lesson the hard way and I can attest to the fact that it is 100% true.
The way you think about work and money is holding you back. It’s not the economy or cheap clients. The reason you’re overworked and still can’t pay the bills is all between your ears.
Let’s take a look at my miserable failure to illustrate exactly what I mean.
My wife and I were sitting down to go over the books after our first year in business. She and I were both pleasantly surprised to find that we serviced 90 clients that year. For a new photography studio located in a town of just 3200 people that was awesome! We were passing around high fives and feeling pretty good about ourselves. Until we noticed how much we made that year. Or rather how much we didn’t make that year. 90 clients consisting of weddings, families, senior portraits, infants, cake smash, headshots and boudoir raked in a whopping $9800 that year. I broke down in tears when I saw that number. I still get emotional when I think about it.
I was in an abusive relationship with my business and to my core I believed everything was all my fault.
At that time I was a stay-at-home dad raising an infant. I had two other daughters in elementary school, one with aspergers. I was remodeling our home and building a small business that serviced 7 clients a month. I was spread thin and stressed to the max. In my mind things were going swimmingly because I was constantly working my butt off. I, like a lot of you, was taught to be a good person you need to work hard and everything will work itself out.
Except I was doing that and now I’m looking at my financials and things didn’t work themselves out. I remember feeling so lost and so emotionally drained as I looked at that Excel spreadsheet. Then the answer hit me. I just wasn’t working hard enough. I defaulted to the mentality that most of us were taught as children, if you’re not successful it’s because you’re not working hard enough. I was in an abusive relationship with my business and to my core I believed everything was all my fault.
Flash forward a few months and my wife applies to be in the studio audience for a creativeLive seminar on Rebranding Your Business by Sarah Petty. For those of you that have never heard of creativeLive it is possibly the best source of free photography training out there. creativeLive brings in world famous photographers who teach three day seminars that are broadcasted live over the internet for FREE. For those of you don’t mind traveling you can attend these seminars in Seattle and spend the weekend learning face-to-face from the masters for FREE. Whether you choose to meet your favorite photographer in person or just watch from home, creativeLive seminars are time well spent.
My wife simply wanted to meet Sarah Petty (one of her favorite photographers) in person and pick up some tips on how to make our business more successful. What ended up happening was Sarah Petty chose to rebrand our entire business from the bottom up, live, on the internet. This world famous photographer, ex-marketing executive for Coca Cola and author of a gazillion photography books wanted to rebuild our business and make it more successful…FOR FREE! New logo and brand identity, new website, new marketing materials, new studio samples for my walls…the works…FOR FREE. We learned a lot that weekend about how to appeal to higher paying clients, how to present ourselves as a solid business and then there was the lesson I simply rejected….
The whole point to the entire weekend long seminar was, How to charge what your worth and be worth what you charge. Because of the incorrect values I was taught about money as a child, I rejected that my business’s troubles were anything more than my failure to work hard. I suspect that a lot of you out there were taught the same way.
Sarah bless her heart spent the whole weekend telling me that I simply wasn’t charging enough for my services. Every time the cameras stopped rolling our conversation came back to what I should be charging to earn a livable wage. Not be wildly successful, but to just earn a livable wage. Now here’s Sarah Petty a wildly successful studio owner and ex-marketing genius for one of the world’s largest brands ever, telling me I’m not charging enough and I rejected it on principle.
I remember thinking how greedy it is to charge $150 for an 8x10 that I purchase from my lab for $2.25. But, to her credit she never gave up and spent the whole weekend trying to help me change the way I thought about money. Even when my attitude bordered on slightly (but unintentionally) insulting. Sarah if you ever read this, your message finally got through. I just needed to process it my own time. Because of your help (both in person and from your book) my studio is thriving. I’m finally charging what I’m worth and making damn sure I’m worth every penny. PS: sorry about my attitude and thank you.
For those of you interested in reading the book that changed my business forever you can pick up a copy of Worth Every Penny by Sarah Petty.
Since that weekend with Sarah I have worked diligently to change my relationship with both money and the time spent to make it. It has been a complete mental shift that has many layers to it but ultimately had I not made that shift my business would have died. Along with my self worth.
So today I want to leave you guys with a couple of videos that will help you on your journey to a more successful and fulfilling photography business.
The first video is the episode where Sarah Petty and the creativeLive team rebranded our business live on the internet. This is less about pricing and more about how to look and be worth the prices your charge. We used what we learned that weekend to completely change the face of our business. The mind shift about money came from our private conversations with Sarah while off-camera. To her credit she didn’t want to dive to deep into our pricing while live on the air to help us save face. Our prices were embarrassingly low. REALLY REALLY EMBARRASSING.
You can see a rundown of what you’ll learn from Sarah’s seminar and you can purchase the full 3 day course at creativeLive.com.
The next video is a free one:
How To Escape Poverty - 'Is Your Thinking Keeping You Poor?' - by Douglas Kruger
Never before have I found a video that has so effortlessly expressed the concepts that help me rewire my thinking about money and time. This video echos some of the thoughts Sarah was trying to teach me and dives into more concepts that I had to learn the hard way. So go grab a cup of coffee and settle in to this 45 minute video that could quite possibly change the course of your business forever.
Also check out Sarah Petty’s book Worth Every Penny it’s total game changer.
Once again I want to thank you guys for spending you time with me today and I sincerely hope these videos help. If they do please let me know in the comment section how.
Thanks and enjoy,
Daniel