5 Tips To Move Your Creative Business Forward When Self-Doubt Creeps In

Do you sometimes doubt yourself so much, that you limit yourself in your career and end up not following your dreams?

Self-doubt is normal – it´s a common state of mind. Everyone doubts themselves; hourly, daily, weekly. Our brain is trained to questioning + analyze everything we do.

What makes some people high-performance individuals with loads of success is their ability to TAKE ACTION – despite their insecurities and self-doubt.

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5 Tips To Move Your Creative Business Forward When Self-Doubt Creeps In:

1. Self-doubt is just a small part of you – it´s not ALL of you

First of all it´s important to shift your mindset. Fighting self-doubt leaves you frustrated, sad and tired. When you fight self-doubting thoughts in a negative self-critique kind of way, the self-doubt tends to spiral into more insecurities.

Start to think of your self-doubting voice as a radio channel in your head. You can hear it, but its your choice if you choose to react to it.

Accept that the self-doubting voice is living within you and treat it with kindness. Say something like “dear voice, I hear you and I know you only have good intentions. You worry about me because you care. You fear that I will make mistakes, be rejected or not be ready. But trust me; I got this! I know I can do this”.

Remind yourself that your self-doubt is just a tiny part of who you are – it´s not ALL of you. You are much more than that, and you deserve to act on your dreams and goals.

2. Listen to your gut feeling and set your own rules

There are no rules in life so why limit yourself to what everybody else is doing?

One huge trap to fall into is the idea that you need to follow specific strategies and steps recommended by experts, gurus and highly successful people. Of course, it´s great to seek inspiration and motivation – but know that it´s okay to do things your way.

If an expert recommends that you post five times a day to Facebook, but you feel like doing one post a week – then it´s okay; do it your way. If someone say, you must respond to ALL blog comments every day, but you rather spend time with your kids. Do it. Listen to your gut feelings and respect yourself enough to do things on your own terms.

I´ve spend many hours following other people’s guidelines and business-building tips only to figure out that when I run my business my way; I get results. That´s when I grow. That´s when I feel good and increase my income.

3. Do not procrastinate what’s important

Do you procrastinate? We all do it from time to time, right. But the amount of how much or how little you procrastinate will be directly linked to your success/progress or lack of it.

The more you procrastinate, the more your self-doubt will control you. Procrastination breeds self-doubt like nothing else.

In fact, if I could give you just one huuuuuuugely valuable advice in business and in life it would be to stop procrastinating and start doing.

Luckily procrastination is not part of your personality – it´s not who you are! It´s nothing more than a bad habit and changing that habit will boost your confidence and improve your life tremendously.

Start each day with a promise to yourself; “Today I love and respect myself enough to take action on what´s most important in my life and in my business”.

4. Say NO and limit your to-do list

To stay clear of self-doubt, negativity, and pressure; you got to say NO some more. I want you to say NO to everything that makes you feel awful, used, stressed out or abused.

To get success in life and business, you need to focus on what´s most important to you. To make room for what matters, you need to clear the way and remove all “clutter”.

Don´t waste your time following other people’s agenda – follow your own path. Do what makes you feel alive, happy and full of energy.

5. Plan your way out of self-doubt

The number one key to success is planning. Without a plan – you plan to fail!

No matter if you are the CEO of a multimillion dollar company or you are a small solo-entrepreneur just getting started, you must spend time on serious planning.

I do this twice a year. I take one full week where I plan my entire year – you know; all the big events, projects and goals. I plug everything into my calendar and make sure I have time enough to follow through with each critical task + goal.

Every 3-6 month I evaluate my plan. Am I sticking to my plan? Is my plan successful? Or is it over-ambitious or too lazy? And the most important question; is the plan getting me to where I want to be? If not; re-adjust.

If you did my Jumpstart program back in December/January, you properly made some big plans for this year. How are you doing with those plans? Are you sticking to your plans?

Take a day this week to re-evaluate your year-plan – or make one. Make sure your plan is right for you and if not – change your strategy along the way!

You deserve the best plan and the best time of your life!

Breath self-doubt out – inhale trust in you.

Much Love,

Charge What You Are Worth + How to Deal With Price-Shopping Clients

11 / 22 / 162 / 9 / 17

(NB. This post is written with photographers in mind, but no matter what kind of creative professional you are, you´ll be able to find helpful tips and great value in this blog post).

There is an ugly truth about working for free. When you work for free, you and your work will be marked as “worthless.” It’s based on human psychology.

So if you dream of turning your photographic passion into a successful + profitable business, it´s time to start thinking about what your work is worth! It´s time to get paid!

After all, without money there´s no business, right!

I know it can be difficult to move beyond thinking, “I´m not sure I´m good enough to get paid” or I´m not sure I´m a real photographer”.

I remember when I had my first big magazine interview back in 2010 I was still so new in the photography world, and I was ashamed to call myself a photographer. I mean WHO WAS I to claim that titel?

When the journalist came to my home for the interview she asked; “how is it to be a photographer?”

I felt myself blushing with embarassment as I whispered “I don´t really feel like a photographer”.

The journalist not even blinked when she said; “well, honey, I got news for you. The titel photographer is not a protected titel. Anyone can call themselves photographers. It´s up to you to decide if you want to PLAY photographer or if you want to BE a photographer. The only person who decide this is YOU. But you better decide fast, because when people start calling you after this interview has been published, you need to be able to say out loud: I´m a photographer and THIS is what I charge – otherwise you´ll make no money!

It was a big A-HA moment.

Perhaps you know the feeling?

During my time as a coach, I´ve seen many talented photographers charge way less than they are worth! No matter how great an artist or photographer you are, you will never make it unless you think in business terms – you need to learn how to ask for what you are worth!

It´s time to take yourself seriously.

It´s time to respect you work and time.

Are you ready?

Ask yourself the following questions: Do I really want this? Do I want to make a living out of being a photographer? Know that it is OK to say no and to keep this passion as a hobby. If as a hobby, you should consider getting paid anyway…after all your time and effort should count for something, right!

If the answer is yes, if you can feel deep in your heart that you want this, despite your insecurities about your future success, then you need to know the following truths:

No matter how great an artist you are, you will never make it unless you think in business terms – you need to learn how to ask for what you are worth!

If you are able to combine confidence in your artistic ability with some simple business rules and some networking, you will quickly grow into a successful business owner.

One of the core fundamentals in business, that leads to success is your pricing structure.

Let´s compare your photography business with an exclusive fashion boutique. When I was a child, I would walk past expensive shops with my mother. She would “window shop” (as we did not have much money) in the most exclusive stores in town and tell me that these shops would pay their rent by selling only one coat a day.

These shops did not work under pressure and they had time to give their best service to their customers. Their business branding promised this!

The same holds true for photographers! You can set a low fee, get lot´s of price-shopping clients to book you, work your butt of and possible burn out! Or you can decide to charge a fee that will make sure that you don´t work under pressure and support the amount of time you spend on a client.

That way you´ll feel happy when you work and have more time with your family. The higher your price, the more time you have to spoil your clients, do your finest post processing and brand your business.

Let´s be honest here; price-shopping clients often does not value all the work and effort you put into it, but maybe you already know that?

Been there, done that – never again 🙂

How much work do you actually do for each client, start to finish?

Think about the following:

Mail correspondence and phone calls: Time spent telling your clients how you work, what they should bring and how they should prepare for each shoot.
Preparation and planning: location, styling, set up, and packing gear.
Transportation to and from locations, or your studio rental fees.
Pre-shoot time, needed to make clients relax for the camera.
Styling your client: doing this yourself or, perhaps, hiring a make-up artist.
The Photo shoot: probably 1-2 hours.
Image selection: Time spent sorting through hundreds of images to select the best ones
Post processing
Creating an online gallery for your client to make their selection
Printing – if this is a service you wish to offer.
Packing and posting CD-room or prints for the client.
Payment handling
Marketing
Customer service follow-up

How many hours do you think all this will take you?

Be realistic…it does take a lot of time to do your best in each of these areas.

If you want enough time to do good and set yourself apart from the competion, then you must set your price to allow for this.

The old saying,’ time is money’ is very true.

When you work, you spend time away from your family – so make sure you get paid well. Make it worth it!

So HOW do you deal with price-shoppers?

Strategy 1: Educate them

Explain your value and how that value translate into the photo session and the final result.

Talk about the experience they will get with you, how much fun you´ll have, how they should prepare for the shoot, tell them why you love doing what you do. Show excitement and entusiasme.

Nothing sells like honest passion, that comes straight from your heart! You don´t even need to be a mean sales person – isn´t that just wonderful 🙂

Strategy 2: Don´t deal with them

Most photographers can smell price-shoppers on a fare distant. The best way is to be upfront fast. Let me give you an example; sometimes I get an email saying something like this:

“Hi, we love your work and we own a shop, (clothing line, hat shop, jewellery or similar – you name it). We would love to hire you to shoot our new line. We know some non-professional models that can model and who can do their makeup themselves. We can not pay you, but you will get free food and good exposure.“

This is where I must laugh out loud! And believe me I do! As we all know free food and good exposure does NOT pay rent, school fee, heat…ect, true right!

I always give them a nice answer back, thanking them for thinking of me, kindly letting them know that it´s not how things roll in my little business.

I don´t care how cool, or how amazing their products are – I don´t work for free, it´s as simple as that! Voila!

The more you value the work you do, the more the customers will value your work too.

Whenever I have a client, I put aside two full days of work, to ensure I don´t get stressed and to make sure I perform my best. On the day of the shoot, I prepare, plan and pack everything I need.

Then I drive to the location. I shoot the session, go home and unpack everything in my studio. The next day, I sit in front of the computer and do the post processing.

I really don´t want to rush things – as getting great, timeless pictures, in good quality for my clients is the most important thing for me. Each of these hours must be accounted for in my fee.

Therefore, I set a price that makes sure that I´m happy during ALL my working hours. It keeps me very motivated to know I do what I LOVE and that I get well paid while doing it. I want you to consider all of these things when you decide on your price.

Of course, you have to begin somewhere. In the beginning, you might need to charge less to get the ball rolling. I did this too. But don’t let this period last too long. Make an effort to raise your prices more than once during your first years.

The happier you are with the money your clients are paying you, the better you will perform!

To run a successful business, you need to avoid stress and make sure that you are happy and relaxed. Remember, an over-stressed mind cannot think creatively and your inner passion/creativity battery will shut down.

( I know this happens to too many photographers and creative professionals).

There is no business if you don’t take care of you!

Take some time now to think about how you will charge for your work. Then commit to raising those prices every month, or every second month, until you are at a level that is perfect for you. Only you can decide what that price is. Ask your heart (not your insecure mind) what that price should be. Now write down your payment plan and stick to it.

If you still feel that you are not good enough to get paid, then let me tell you: all art is work! Often many hours of work! All work that you do is worth something. Your time should count for something..

Take care,

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Why Photographers Cannot Take Pictures For Free

11 / 20 / 162 / 9 / 17

How do you deal with a request from a family member or friend, who ask you to take their picture – for free?

Do you charge friends if they ask you to take photos? Do you charge uncle Ben when he want´s you to photograph all of his five children?

For many aspiring photographers this situation is a hot potato!

I´ve gotten countless of emails concerning this issue, because it can be so tricky to deal with. As a photographer you might like to get paid (oh yes) but you don´t want to come of as “being to much” or being stingy or un-friendly when it comes to friends and relatives.

My friends/family don´t ask me for free pictures anymore, they know I´m working hard and running a serious business. But I think it´s normal when you are still starting out, that people tend to think they can ask you to do it for free. It happened to me many times when I was first starting out!

When this happened I simply educated them and told them that there was much more to it than pressing a button. I explained that it would take lots of preparation and many hours of editing and therefore I could not take time out of my schedule to do it.

I said, “thank you for asking, but with my three kids and my business I simply don´t have the luxury to find time to do unpaid work”.

The moment you start to take your own work and time seriously people will feel this and be more careful to ask.

Keep in mind that people don´t ask to be rude, they ask because they don´t know how much effort you need to put into it – so my advice is to educate them about the amount of time it takes. Don´t justify yourself just say it as it is. And remember if you say yes to one friend…more will ask, so don´t go there 🙂

If you aim to make it as a photographer, creating compelling images is the way you´ll make a living. If you give away your images for free, or spend too much time responding to requests for free images, you cannot make a living – it´s as simple as that.

As a photographer (beginner or pro) you also have expenses to cover. You need to buy a camera, lenses, a computer, software, storage devices. You need to pay for website hosting, and maybe even logo and a branding identity.

In other words, you need to respect that your work is worth something – no matter your level as a photographer, you still need to cover your expenses. So if you´re not feeling worthy enough to get paid yet – at least promise me, to think about all the expenses you need to cover!

Spending time photographing friends and family is great in the beginning, it´s a good way to practice your skills. But if you wish to push yourself to learn faster and become even more creative, I recommend that you early on start to photograph people you don´t know well. It can be friends of friends or children from the local school. But always ask for a fee – even if it´s a small one. You can always raise your price as you get more comfortable with your work and skills.

At some point you need to move beyond family and friends, push yourself out of the comfort zone and decide that you are serious about making a living of being a photographer.

Taking pictures for free, will never pay your bills, cover your expenses or make you feel good in the long run.

Everything you do is worth something!

Much Love

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