How to Work ON Your Photography Business

Last week I told you about why you need to gain control in your business to do the o so important pro active tasks like marketing your photography business.

And basically, when you don’t have clients lined up and you can’t pay the bills yet, the main thing you have to do is marketing, sales and work on your photography skills. That’s it.

So how do you make time to work on those 3 areas?

Today I will tell you.

Create an environment where you will do the right photography business work

Everyone’s situation is different. Some have kids, some don’t, some have all day, some only 3 mornings a week.

When time is limited you need to create habits in your business. When you have formed a habit, a certain task will take less energy from you while it produces the same or better results.

I know it will be more challenging for some than for others. But everyone can do this. Let me give you some background on habits with the following story.

Habits and will power

Did you ever hear of the experiment with chocolate & radish?

It went like this:

2 groups were put in a room that smelled of delicious fresh baked chocolate cookies + the actual cookies itself.

1 group was allowed to eat them. The other group was only allowed to eat the radish.

The group that was not allowed to eat the chocolate cookies had a hard time. Some of the persons in the group even picked up the cookies to sniff them ;-).

Then another (seemingly unrelated) task followed. Both groups had to solve a puzzle.

I will quote from this article since that makes it more clear:

The effect of the manipulation was immediate and undeniable. Those who ate radishes made far fewer attempts and devoted less than half the time solving the puzzle compared to the chocolate-eating participants and a control group that only joined this latter phase of the study. In other words, those who had to resist the sweets and force themselves to eat pungent vegetables could no longer find the will to fully engage in another torturous task. They were already too tired.

So bottom line is, you only have a limited amount of will power during the day.

To read more about this experiment see this article.

This is a very important concept to grasp.

It explains why you will fail if you want to take on too many new things at once in your life.

Like exercising, eating healthy, doing marketing, etc (I just list my top 3 ;-))

You don’t have enough will power to do that.

Sure, you will last for a week, but then….

You will stop doing one thing…

And then maybe the second thing drops off your list.

And you will feel like you have failed which doesn’t motivate you to keep going.

So here’s how you can make marketing happen in your business!

1. Set clear deadlines for your clients

As I have written in this blog, it is super important to create deadlines for your clients.

This not only helps your clients but also creates space in your mind knowing that you can still spend time on marketing stuff when your images have not been delivered yet.

If you have not read it yet:

>> 4 reasons why you should have deadlines in your photography business

2. Take on one new thing at a time and create a habit for it

When you focus on one new thing at a time you still have enough will power left to create great work in the other areas of your photography business that already feel more comfortable.

Do that new thing for at least 30-60 days to form your habit and then add another thing. It varies from person to person and it depends on the task how long it will take for a habit to stick.

For example brushing your teeth every day is a low impact change with a big result (fresh breath!) with a high frequency.

Doing sales sessions with your clients will probably be less regular and it will vary per client so it will take longer to become a habit, or comfortable.

Take the time to really define why you want to learn/ master this new skill. That way it is easier to keep going.

[thrive_text_block color=”blue” headline=””]I highly recommend the app ‘better habits‘ to keep track of your habits. I use it too and have tried at least ten other habit apps before I found this one. It’s the only app that will help you actually achieve habits by keeping track of your attempts, allowing for the occasional fail or cheat day and in the end move your achieved habits to your celebrations corner so you can work on mastering a new habit. [/thrive_text_block]

3. Focus your attention on getting things done first thing in the day

Some call the first hour of your working day a power hour.

Make the effort of doing your new uncomfortable task like writing blogs/ doing networking calls/ etc first thing in the morning when you still have all your will power.

It will be much easier to finish an album design or process some more images in the afternoon than to start a blog or doing something that you are not comfortable with yet.

(I am writing this blog first thing in the morning… just saying).

4. Start small

When you put writing blogs on your list of things to add to your business make the new habit small.

So it looks easy to you.

For example: – write on my blogs 10 seconds a day

Will look much simpler than – write a blog a day

And you know what… Starting/showing up is half the work!

As soon as you have typed for 10 seconds, you will continue.

And you will be surprised how easy it was.

Now it’s your turn. For each of your uncomfortable new tasks/ habits, write down the smallest first step.

For example:

• Networking: Google network partners in your neighborhood, see which ones fit with your style & brand.
• Publishing blogs: Google the wedding blogs, find out what you need to do for submission.
• Doing SEO on your website: Google a step by step course, or if you already know how to do it, optimize one blog post.

Etc. Keep your first step very small and make an effort to always make the next step as small as possible before writing it down on your to-do list for the next day.

5. Keep your client work organized

To keep track of your clients & reactive work like delivering your images in time, use a workflow chart or ShootZilla. This way you have peace of mind knowing all your clients are taken care of while you focus on mastering a new habit or skill to grow your photography business!

Can’t wait to see you crushing it!

Let everyone know in the comments what small step you are going to start with, so we can keep you accountable!