Business Success, Part 6 – On Doing the Work & Believing in Yourself

This is the final post in my six-part series, “How I Sold $100K My First Year in Business.” To see the rest of the series, scroll down to the bottom of this post. My last two takeaways from first-year business success are:

#9. I did the work. I worked regular hours every day and sometimes longer hours to meet and exceed client expectations. Even when I didn’t feel like it, I put my butt in the chair and edited images (while answering the phone, responding promptly to emails, and everything else I mentioned earlier.) In my opinion, this is the difference between an amateur and a professional. Pros do the work, even when they don’t feel like it.

There was a photographer in my area that first year who went AWOL. Her voicemail and email inboxes were full, clients were leaving notes on her door asking when she’d be done with their photos—and you can believe they were talking about her in online forums. You don’t want to be that guy or gal. Do the work! And deliver on your promises.

Photo by Trekking Rinjani. Licensed under Creative Commons.

#10. I believed in myself and acted accordingly. Bottom line: I didn’t know I couldn’t do it. I was coming off a successful run as a consultant, having garnered positive feedback from my clients and supervisor, and having succeeded in raising several million dollars in partnership with my clients. 

Also, I had just planned my own wedding in 2004/2005 and had done a lot of research on the photography industry. What had once seemed like an impossible barrier to entry—photographers had to be a special breed with way more talent than me, right?!—had been analyzed and found to be surmountable. I could do it. You can too. But you have to do your research and find your confidence. If you don’t believe in yourself, people can tell. And if you don’t trust yourself, why should they?

Sure, there were times I was nervous, but I chose to focus on the positive. I even went so far as to give myself pep talks on the way to weddings some days. “Kate, you are a great photographer. You’re going to be in the zone today, watching the action, capturing moments, and you’ll get amazing results.” Yeah, it sounds cheesy, but it’s a lot better than talking yourself into a poor performance.

And I reminded myself that if I goofed on a shot, clients wouldn’t be able to tell. Only I knew what I was trying to capture; clients only saw what I did capture.

Any remaining burning questions about business success, photography, or this series? Speak now or forever hold your peace.

Cheers,

If you missed a post in my “Business Success” series, here they all are in order:

• Part 1 – How I Sold $100K in Year One as a Wedding and Portrait Photographer
• Part 2 – On Specialty & Skill
• Part 3 – On Peers & Enthusiasm
• Part 4 – On Market & Pricing
• Part 5 – On Instincts & First Impressions
• Part 6 – On Doing the Work & Believing in Yourself