6 months in - what isn’t working in my biz?
It’s been 6 months since the incredible team over at Known By transformed my branding, helped me clarify my business goals and define what is at the heart of my business. Shout out to them, they are total rockstars (check them out here - shameless plug). My 6 month milestone coinciding with the end of the year has triggered a shit tonne of reflection, and some brutal honesty for myself. Not one to pull my punches, I’m taking that information and obviously going to write all about it and post it to the internet for all to see - LOL.
Last blog I wrote about the most successful part of my business at the moment, and the feedback I’m getting. This blog I’m doing a 180, and going to deep dive into what has surprised me over the last few months and what isn’t working as well as I predicted. It’s juicy, folks. Let’s jump in.
I LOWERED MY PRICES - AND WHY I’M TALKING ABOUT IT
Pricing in my business is a friggin nightmare for me. I have no internal gauge about how much my work and time is worth, and struggle not to fall prey to the comparison minefield in the photography community. When I was designing my new packages, I sat myself down and checked all the prices of similarly located/looking family photographers and wedding photographers. I plonked myself smack down in the middle-to-lower general pricing bracket (which was still a price change from my previous packages) and considered myself sorted. Cue 2023 - and the EPIC cost of living crisis. I mean holy fuck - the timing, my friends. I know you’re all living in it with me, it's a nightmare. The feedback I was getting was along the lines of ‘I love your work Jess, but it's just out of our price range’, or, ‘I can’t wait to book in, maybe next year?’. Clearly the barrier of entry to my work was too high at that moment - and being an inaccessible photographer is the exact OPPOSITE of why I started my biz.
Any business guru’s and photography podcasts will tell you to hold strong, raise your prices, value yourself and your work. I also have bills to pay and jeez louise I was struggling. I sat with it for a while and it all came down to this - keep my prices and wait for things to become financially better for us all, or remove the barrier of entry for potential clients and lower my prices. I felt defeated and like I was failing. Eventually my brain gave me this thought - it's your dang business Jess, you can literally do whatever the fuck you want in it. Lower your prices, and do the thing you love. Isn’t that the point?
SELF ESTEEM AND QUEEN SESSIONS
When I rebranded I was SO excited to introduce an empowering, individual-centric option that (selfishly) meant that I could work with incredible clients, help them (hopefully) discover a long lost part of themselves that was kick ass, confidant, beautiful - and revive it, water it and watch it flourish. In theory - bloody fab idea. In practice? So hard. Encouraging you all to embrace a process like this is HARD. Self esteem for us all is a friggin minefield, and in this situation it is a huge mountain for someone to climb. As a fellow low self esteem sufferer, I get it. On a soul level. I’m not sure how to tackle this one, or how to better express to clients how safe this process will be to help with their fears. It’s a tricky one. But I still believe that these sessions have a place, so my stubborn self won't be getting rid of them.
A second part I am noticing is - GALS. You DO NOT want to invest money and time into yourself! Investing in shoots with the kids? Absolutely. Investing in shoots for events with your friends and loved ones? HECK YEAH. Investing in something just for you? YEAH RIGHT. Mumlife to a T, am I right? I honestly can’t say too much about this observation as I am 100% the same. I think this is an ingrained mum habit.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING AND FEELING OUT OF PLACE
This aspect of my business is fully planted on my own shoulders. I am not confident with social media marketing, and find it really hard to share personal things about myself in the way the system responds too best. I don’t think I’ll ever be someone who holds my phone up and talks to it, or shares a crap tonne of info about my day to day. I admire the hell out of people who do it, and there's some amazing local photographers who kick butt with it. I’m sure they would be the first to say it’s not their fav thing either - and I applaud them for doing it anyway! I’ve found a small compromise with creating a newsletter for people who sign up, and share some personal deets in there - but I’m also a bit hopeless with letting people know that even exists haha! Ahhh the circles I spin myself into.
I’ve had some incredible chats with other creative humans like Loving Cocoon, Shay Bianco Consulting, and Known By - who have helped open my mind to finding a compromise with what I’m comfortable with and what helps my business chug along. It’s one of my goals for the new year to work on, and let’s hope I can manifest some bloody confidence. I once heard some advice on a podcast that has stuck with me for years - ‘you are responsible for everything that happens in your business’. The good and the bad. The work and the procrastination. The mental blocks and the wins. This work around marketing for me is on me - so imma get my butt into gear. Hopefully.
MY OWN SELF TALK
As you can probably tell from my previous point - YA GIRL IS AN ANXIOUS SOUL. Overthinking is my forte and people-pleasing is my wheelhouse. So fun. Shout out to all my other anxious girlies out there - it's a big club and we're all gold standard members. The genuine belief that I’m not so fab at business and photography is a daily battle (not in a sob story way, more in a regular average ‘that’s just how it is’ way). I’m working on it. It has been interesting over the last 6 months to occasionally observe my own negative self talk though - and really challenge it. And start posing questions like - what if? What if I back myself? What if I take the risk? What if it’s not actually a big deal and I just create because I want to?
This one isn’t going to be solved any time soon. But I hope I can start to challenge the negative bias in my thoughts and funnel some positive, zero fucks given energy into this business space and see what happens. Could be amazing. Wouldn’t that be cool?
I totally dug writing this up - it encouraged self reflection and honesty which I friggin love. Who doesn’t enjoy an end of year summary and check in (probably not many when it’s about someone else, but STILL). I have no idea where my biz will go in 2024 - the last 3 years have been a convoluted, wild roller coaster of a time and I legit can’t predict what will happen. While I wait to see how it rolls out, I’m going to enjoy the summer holidays with my kid and be grateful that I even have this platform at all. Happy Summer, folks.