This Can't Be That Hard
You love photography, but running a business? That's a different story. If you've ever thrown up your hands trying to figure it out yourself and said "This CAN'T be that hard!!!" you've come to the right place. Host Annemie Tonken's secret superpower is cutting through the confusion to give you actionable, step-by-step strategies and systems that will help you build a business that reflects your values, serves your needs, and thrills your clients. Tune in to find out why thousands of photographers around the world love Annemie's simple, you-can-do-this approach to everything from pricing to marketing to customer service... and...
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385 - Marketing Monday with Maddie Peschong
<p>Being your own boss comes with a lot of big benefits, but there are challenges, too... and one of the surprising ones is how hard it is to get things done when you're the only one managing your time.<br/><br/>On this week's Stories & Shorties episode, Maddie Peschong is sharing her secret weapon: Marketing Mondays: a block of time every single week that's just for marketing, no matter what else is going on.</p><p>In this episode, she's sharing: </p> Why Marketing Monday works even though it looks a little different every week How she protects that tim...
384 - Busy Season Hack: Minimizing Time & Maximizing Profit with Lyndsay McNiff
<p>This week, we're shifting gears. The busy season is upon us, and from now straight through the holidays, we're all going to be chasing our tails in one way or another - with marketing, with sessions, or even just with general pre- and mid-holiday chaos. So instead of hitting you each week with a longer, meatier episode, I've put together a series we're calling "Stories & Shorties." These are bite-sized tips and stories from some of my favorite photographers and educators, intended to give you those little boosts of business-focused inspiration you need each week. <br/><br/>We're kicking things o...
383 - Playing the Long Marketing Game with Tiffany Crenshaw
<p>Here's something see all the time (and have fully been guilty of myself): you run a marketing campaign, it does what it does, and by the time it's over, you don't want to think about it any more... you're just onto the next thing. You skip the debrief. You promise yourself you'll remember what worked. But then six months later you're reinventing a wheel you've already built two or three times.</p><p>To close out our back-to-school marketing challenge, I brought on my friend Tiffany Crenshaw from Animal House Photography and Tiffany Crenshaw Education. Tiffany - a business o...
382 - The BTS Marketing Challenge: Manage your Messaging with Melody MacDonald
<p>You know that feeling when you get a client email, a phone call, or even just an inquiry and your heart starts racing... Maybe it's excitement, maybe it's fear, or maybe it's a combination of the two, but according to our nervous system, it's all the same.</p><p>We talk a lot on this podcast about what to say to fill your calendar. What we don't talk about enough is how what's happening in your body when you respond tends to show up in your words whether you mean it to or not.</p><p>That's exactly why...
381 - Creating an Appetizing Offer Menu
<p>Most restaurant menus have a handful of apps, a handful of entrees, and a handful of desserts: enough to give people choices and accommodate dietary restrictions, but not so many that people get overwhelmed.</p><p>So why do most of us limit our photography "menu" to one or two items? When your business only has one package, one price, the offer is take it or leave it: you're handing hesitant clients an easy way to say no by saying nothing at all.</p><p>In this episode, I'm breaking down:</p> Why a single, rigid offer might be c...
380 - The Back-to-School Marketing Challenge: Organizing Your Leads with Dayna Schaaf
<p>It's August, which means it's probably feels way too early to think about Black Friday, holiday cards, or filling your calendar for Q4... but that's exactly why now is the time to do it!</p><p>Every year I watch the same thing happen: photographers coast through summer, and then the second Starbucks rolls out everyone's favorite seasonal latte, panic sets in: empty calendar, no plan, reactive scramble. This month on the podcast, we're running something we're calling the Back to School Marketing Challenge, and this episode is step one: getting organized.</p><p>My marketing director Dayna and...
379 - 20 Steps in One Direction
<p>Here's a pattern I've noticed: photographers spend months chasing a version of growth that sounds right, but never actually sits right. Typically this is because they've heard advice or purchased a course that may be well-intentioned, but doesn't really align with their unique circumstances or goals. Before they know it, they've spent their valuable time, money, and energy heading in the wrong direction, and now have to spend more of each of those things to get themselves back on track.</p><p>I'm wrapping up our Beyond the Bottleneck series this week, and although this episode may sound a...
378 - The Nuts & Bolts of Building an Associate Team with Ali Leigh
<p>You can streamline and automate every last thing in your business, but there are still only so many clients you can take on because there's only one of you... unless you build an associate team.</p><p>This week, I'm sharing my conversation with Ali Leigh, a Minneapolis-based wedding photographer who has been running an associate team for almost a decade. Ali was an open book, sharing the actual nuts and bolts:</p> How and why she got started with associates (mostly by accident) How she finds and vets associates that represent her brand well How she pays them and...
377 - Get It Out of Your Head with Colie James
<p>My dad had a "system" for organizing his office. You could ask him for anything - any book or file or piece of paper - and he'd be able to locate it in 30 seconds. The problem? No one else had any idea what his system was, and if he wasn't available, nothing could be located.</p><p>Maybe your office is super organized, maybe your desktop is as clean as the day you got your computer, but I'd be willing to bet that somewhere in your business, there are "systems" that only you have the keys to.</p><p>...
376 - Getting Out of Your Own Way
<p>There's an old story about a fisherman who keeps going out every day with holes in his net. Even though he knows the net leaks, he doesn't think he can afford to take the time off from fishing to mend the holes. I've been that fisherman more times than I'd like to admit, and I'd be willing to bet there's a good chance you have been too.</p><p>At some point in business, most of us will get in our own way. Of course that bottleneck isn't obvious - instead, it shows up as exhaustion, as the feeling...
