Hey before we get started, if you’ve found this podcast helpful for your business, would you hit pause & take 2 minutes to leave a rating & review wherever you listen? It helps so much with getting the word out about what we are trying to do here - create a better situation for all of us, pushing you to build a more profitable, productive & purposeful business so that you can spend more time doing what you love with the ones you love.

Because you guys are so awesome, I’m going to be doing some giveaways for those reviews left in March & April. Is it gonna be you? I sure hope so!

I’m gonna brag on a few of my students inside Studio Secrets before we get started here today. Here’s some of their most recent wins that they’ve shared inside our facebook group.

You can see the actual screenshots & any of the links I mention in the show in the show notes at www.seniorstudiosuccess.com/podcast.

This is actually a big win in my book. These are the things that we put off & know we need to do as business owners. But since it’s not urgent, like getting images ready for a client, it gets put on the back burner. We’re gonna talk about consistency a little later in this episode, so I thought this was a good one to share this week.

I actually love this. Getting laughed at about your pricing isn’t easy to take. But Emily let it roll right off her back, then turned around & booked her perfect client!

Amy is being all kinds of proactive & I LOVE it!! Her calendar is going to be full before we know it!

I just happen to know that Amanda did, in fact, book sessions from all of those consults. Then she ended up with 2 more that booked sessions, so that girl just booked 5 sessions! Go girl!

I love hearing all of their wins each week. I tell them over and over again that they may seem small, but they add up. And when we are up against those big things in life and business, these are a great reminder that we can do big things. I would encourage you to create your own weekly wins journal & celebrate the big & small victories.

If you wanna grow your business, get your systems in place & celebrate your wins with a group of your biggest fans who won’t let you fail, be sure you’re on the wait list for Studio Secrets so you can join the next round. You need to be in there.

You can join the waitlist at www.seniorstudiosuccess.com/studiosecrets.

Six figures, not including the zeroes. Sounds nice, huh? You may already be there. If you are, congratulations! It took me a while to get my little side hustle up to that level. So, if you aren’t there yet, don’t get discouraged. It’s doable, and that’s exactly what we’re gonna talk about today.

Now you can get there several different ways, right? Let’s talk about the numbers. Before we do though, let’s all agree that $100,000 in sales is not the same as a $100,000 paycheck. Right? There’s a whole lot of expenses mixed in there. That sometimes gets forgotten about or not talked about when you start seeing numbers pop up in online discussions. All $5,000 sales are not equal. A $5,000 portrait order doesn’t do you much good if you worked with that client for 25 hours and you have $1,700 in product costs. But a $5,000 order on a 10 hour client and 10% cogs is much nicer.

There are so many hidden expenses and overhead and income taxes to account for. Be sure you go back to episode 02 titled “How To Not Go Broke As A Senior Photographer” and episode 09 titled “How Much Is Your Business Really Costing You Each Month?” if you want a little refresher on that.

Ok, back to how to make this happen . . .

You could have one $100,000 client (highly unlikely), 2 $50,000 clients, 4 $25,000 clients, and on and on and on. I’m not saying that’s not possible. Anything is possible. But the odds are probably against you (and me) on those sales.

Sadly, in our industry today, it looks a little differently. Now, the type of business you build is completely up to you. I just think that most photographers starting out don’t think this all the way through when setting their pricing, and then they get stuck because they’ve built this client base that is used to a certain price point. That becomes increasingly more difficult to manage because of the workload and then those photographers are afraid to raise their prices for fear of losing those clients.

But hey, if you want to shoot 400 $250 sessions, then by all means, give it your best shot! You can get to six figures that way, and then collapse. I’m here to tell you though, that it doesn’t have to be like that. It’s extremely possible to book 40 $2500 clients or 30ish $3000 clients or 20 $5000 clients. My students inside Studio Secrets are doing it every single day. And some of them started with those small 3 digit sales, burning the candle at both ends.

Now they’ve rebuilt their businesses and have room to breathe and time to spend with their families and give their clients a better experience. It’s not easy. I will agree with any and everyone on that one! I had to go through that same painful process. But they are on their way or have already made it to their 6 figures. I know lots in my round one already have. And these guys in round two are gonna blow it out of the water!

But here’s the thing. Getting those higher ticket clients and those sales isn’t just about numbers. It takes a lot more than understanding numbers to get there. And that’s what I want to concentrate on today. I believe it takes 3 things - consistency, trust & a different mindset.

Consistency

This one is hard. It’s hard to show up when you aren’t seeing results. We have been programmed for immediate gratification. If it doesn’t happen right away, we’re on to the next shiny object. That is not how to run a business, especially a six figure business.

The ones that you see out here in the industry killing it with five, six and ten thousand dollar sales didn’t just slap a high price on an album & get immediate results. You know about them now, but how about all the years they were in the weeds trying to figure this thing out just like you might be now? You know why you know their names today? Because they were consistent & didn’t give up. They didn’t throw excuses around like confetti. They stayed the course & didn’t let fear make their business decisions.

So if I could encourage you in any way today, that would be it. Stop making the excuses. Take ownership - of the good things that happen in your business and the bad things. Show up even when you don’t want to & do not let fear drive your business. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Somebody says you’re too expensive? You fail? I’m gonna say something that somebody’s not gonna like & I’m ok with that. But I think if you do business scared you’re failing anyway. So be bold. Be consistent. And keep giving it all you got - because you can do this!! I know you can!!

Trust

This probably goes hand in hand with what we just talked about. But when you decide to take those bold moves, something is gonna happen that you’re not going to be prepared for. You might get blindsided. You might have the wind knocked out of you. You might fall flat on your face. You might have to sit there and twiddle your thumbs in the silence for a hot second. When any of that happens, you’re going to want to retreat back to safety, to the old comfortable way you used to do things.

Guess what? That’s just your brain doing its job. It’s trying to protect you. It’s completely natural and normal for this to happen. Ok? So this is where you have to tell your brain to sit down & shut up for a minute. Then you have to teach it a thing or two about how things are going to go from here on out. Honestly, you have to rewire it a little bit. You have to start telling yourself a new story. You have to turn those negative, full of doubt thoughts into positive, full of hope thoughts.

This takes patience and here’s that word again . . . consistency. You have to trust the process. I tell my students this all the time.

When I was writing my notes for this podcast a story came to mind that I wanna share you guys. Some of you probably know it. Some may not. And that’s ok. I don’t know where you stand in your beliefs or your faith and I will never push mine on someone. But just so you know, I grew up in a good ol’ southern Baptist church & I love Jesus. I do cuss a little though. I’ve read and heard all the stories. But this one goes perfectly with this. Here’s how it goes.

Jesus was teaching to a crowd. He sent his disciples back to the back while he finished up. Then he went to the mountainside to pray. By the time he got back to the shore, the boat was a good ways off and a storm was moving in. So in good ol’ Jesus fashion, he decides to just walk on the water over to the boat. Well, the disciples saw him out there & thought he was a ghost. They were afraid. I would have been too if I saw somebody walking out on the lake towards me in a boat!

Of course, Jesus knew they were afraid & told them not to be. But one of them shouts out “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.”

Jesus said “come on”. I’m paraphrasing here, but that’s how I bet he said it!

Peter trusted him & started to walk towards him. But then the winds picked up and he began to doubt & sink. Of course, Jesus saved him because he’s Jesus.

Here’s what I hope you got out of that. Peter began to sink when his trust ran out.

It’s the same way with your business. When you get impatient, when you start to doubt, when you get scared, when you make decisions from ANY of those places, your business will not go very far. It will start to sink.

So, I will say it again for the ones in the back . . . “trust the process.”

A Different Mindset

Here’s where I’m gonna get a little woo woo for you.

You have to be the person you want to be before you are the person you want to be.

You have to dress like her. You have to plan like him. You have to show up like her. And you have to be dead set in the direction you want to go like him.

You have to make decisions that your future self would make today, and that can be scary. That does take some trust.

But if you keep making the same mistakes & decisions that today’s version of yourself makes, you’ll stay stuck where you are right now.

A photographer who makes $4,000 sales is making different decisions than an all-inclusive photographer.

Again, I’m not saying that one is better than the other. I’m not putting down the shoot and burn photographer. But here’s what I am saying. If you are ready to move on from that, it can be done.

Sit down & right out a list of what you want. What do you want your business & life to look like? Are you making decisions for that person? If not, start talking to yourself like that person. Start dressing like that person. Start planning like that person. And the next time you’re up against a decision, make the decision that he or she would make.

I can tell you all the things to do. We could lay out a plan & make a list of do’s & don’ts. But if you don’t believe that you are already that future version of yourself, none of that will even matter. You have to believe it. You have to be it, before you can do it and have it.

A Little Help

Here’s something a little extra for you. Sometimes it really does take some help. Sometimes you need a partner, somebody by your side. Sometimes it takes a good business coach.

We weren’t born with natural business building skills. Those have to be learned, through trial and error and through experience. A good business coach (whether it’s me or somebody else) will shorten that learning curve window for you. There are some great ones in our industry. And what they offer is their 10, 15 or 20 years of experience and knowledge packaged up and offered to you to learn in a fraction of the time of the time that it took them to learn it.

So when you hire a business coach, it might feel like you are drinking from a fire hydrant. Some of my students inside Studio Secrets say that sometimes. And then I have to remind them that success isn’t built overnight. They will get there a whole lot faster than I did, but they are learning in a pretty short amount of time what it took me 17 years to learn. So if any of you guys are listening to this, here’s another reminder for you. It’s not a race, and trust the process.

If you need a little help, come join me inside Studio Secrets this next round. I’m going to start doing clarity calls soon so that we can sit down & talk together to make sure it’s a good fit for you & your business. The link to schedule one of those will be up on the wait list page soon if it isn’t already by the time you hear this episode. You can get on that list at www.seniorstudiosuccess.com/studiosecrets. I’d love to work with you & get you to that six figure mark.

Alright you guys, I wanna know what you think about today's episode. Send me a DM on Instagram. And let me know you're listening! The podcast stats are pitiful so I don't know unless you tell me. Take a screenshot, post it & tag me in your stories so we can connect!

And if you really wanna connect, join me in the next Business After Hours. You can find links to all the things I talk about here on the podcast in the show notes at www.seniorstudiosuccess.com/podcast.

Ok. let’s continue the conversation over in the Senior Studio Success Facebook Group. I’m always up for a good business chat. Or you can find me over on Instagram. Send me a DM there. Have a great week y’all!