FULL TRANSCRIPT: Please note this transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors.

00:00:00:09 – 00:00:02:17

You’re listening to the Portrait System podcast.

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You’ve got to continually grow to like every time I think I’ve grown exponentially in one area, it’ll show me that I need to grow in this area. And at first the lessons were coming so hard and fast. It’s like, let’s go like, can I just have a reprieve where I don’t feel this life pain all the time? And I now don’t have that life pain in my life.

00:00:28:02 – 00:00:54:13

This is the Portrait System podcast, a show that helps portrait photographers and people hoping to become one navigate the world of photography, business money, and so much more. We totally keep it real. We share stories about the incredible ups and the very difficult downs when running a photography business. I’m your host, Nikki Closser, and the point of this podcast is for you to learn actionable steps that you can take to grow your own business and also to feel inspired and empowered by the stories you hear. Hello.

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Hello, hello. Hello, Nikki Closser. How are you doing?

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I’m wonderful. You know you’re we’re almost at a million downloads right now.

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That’s why we’re talking today. Tell me, what do you think has been the biggest growth for you personally in the last 18 months, building this phenomenal podcast and getting to one million downloads?

00:01:21:02 – 00:02:03:14

You know, honestly, it goes back to staying in my lane. It goes back to just doing what I know I’m good at and what my strengths are, which is talking to people connecting with people, empowering people, whether it’s through, you know, for my clients, through the photographs I make for them or. Just even teaching people through here and in empowering through the guests and and with the course, I did a course. On personal branding, which to me felt so good, I know you’re like this, we’re very similar that when we see someone else succeed and grow, it is the most wonderful thing and to be able to share with people and empower and just.

00:02:04:17 – 00:02:07:00

Yes, I’ve been doing all the things that I know I’m really great at.

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So I think because I built my business from nothing and I had to learn, you know, each step about money and being successful and going up at next level and then the next level again in my business and my personal income. And the one thing I found was as I started to become more successful, I had to hang out with people that were driven to the same kind of success and drive because otherwise I seemed to make other people who were still stuck or maybe didn’t want the same things.

00:02:42:04 – 00:03:23:12

I seemed to upset the apple cart with my ambition and my drive and my hard work, and I remembered feeling a bit lonely even when I reached certain little money goals because I was starting from nothing. I remember thinking, like, who can I talk to about this without?  Like people would say things like, Oh, so you must be killing it. And I was my business was taking off. But you know what? Profitability and how much money you actually keep in those first three or five years? And it looked like we were incredibly successful, and a lot of my friends were saying really silly things like, Oh, you’re rich now? And and I wasn’t by any stretch.

00:03:23:16 – 00:03:52:22

I mean, I was just getting my bank account, my business bank account sort of up to like $80000 for the first time in 20 years. Like, I was really making it work. And I did feel accomplished and stuff like there. But who do you talk to if people are not in alignment with growing with money and stuff like that? So sometimes people don’t see your success as a big win they see it as taking away from something they can’t have that that sucks.

00:03:53:12 – 00:03:54:14

Oh yeah, yeah.

00:03:54:24 – 00:03:57:03

Well, at home podcast. Yeah, that’s my dog.

00:03:57:29 – 00:04:30:05

Yeah, I’m sure mine probably bark at some point, too. You know, I know at the beginning of every year we always do an SBE sort of goal setting session where you’re resetting and there’s just like a renew every year of hope and of taking action. And I’ve noticed over the last year and I pay more attention because I’m always looking for podcast guests and I’m looking for success stories and that sort of thing. I’ve noticed more than ever people are saying I quit my job, my day job this year that was sucking the life out of me.

00:04:30:12 – 00:05:02:18

I have consistent clients now. I have a sustainable sales average like this is real now and I kind of want to talk to those people. And I will say, speaking to what you just said, it’s nice to have a group where you can share these successes and have people genuinely be excited and cheer you on and give you advice, which is amazing because, like you said, we don’t always have that in our personal life. But let’s talk to those people, OK, so now they they’re getting there. They’re like consistently booking in their sales averages up.

00:05:03:27 – 00:05:07:12

You know, maybe we do some goal setting action, talk for them.

00:05:07:26 – 00:05:40:06

You know what? It’s kind of intermediate business, right? You’ve broken through selling, you’ve built your folio and we just have a lot of people saying, Now what? Like now what? And it’s quite incredible. You spend like this, I’d say you spend five to 10 years getting really good at being self-employed like that. It takes a long time if you’ve never been self-employed before or if you started in debt with bad money programming like you just didn’t know anything about keeping money or receiving.

00:05:40:08 – 00:06:10:23

That’s going to take you a while that that evolution doesn’t happen overnight. You have to shift a whole lot of brain stuff and a whole lot of childhood stuff. So I feel like there is just so much focused on breaking you through to that next level. And then, you know, the majority because SBE only six years old, the majority of our people are in that phase. About 80 percent of them are just in that first start up phase. That’s tip one to three. And not many people get to the four five six very quickly.

00:06:10:25 – 00:06:46:06

It takes time and it’s frustrating, and there’s a lot to learn. But the ones that are breaking through sales and they’re getting consistent. Let’s, yeah, let’s talk to their next steps because I just spend a weekend with the Empower Network. It’s a network of 19 incredible photographers in the ESRB network, and I am one of the I make 20. And I was just blown away that they’re all broken through to these huge sales averages. Like, I hit a range of selling from $2000 average to $9000 averages in this portrait realm.

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But they were coming up with the same themes and the same stuck. So the areas around growing and it’s the next step in money, interestingly enough.

00:06:58:21 – 00:07:09:06

Right? What were they saying? What were the things, you know, if you could think of like the five things that were kind of stalling them or the obstacles, I guess, what were they coming up with?

00:07:09:14 – 00:07:39:26

All right. So let’s just talk to these are the five biggest obstacles I see in the startup phase, and then they shift a little bit in that sort of intermediate phase. So in the startup phase, no one is you don’t get anywhere until you’ve locked down that folio and that product and the folio and the product is also the price, right? It’s that folio. It’s what you sell and it’s what you do. So mastering that folio when that product is your highest priority, when you’re starting out, nobody has a good shooting space.

00:07:40:18 – 00:08:13:15

Very few people can afford to rent something straight up the back because they’re not making any money. So everybody’s either starting in their home, in their garage, in a rented space, outside, on location. And the biggest problem with that is when you don’t master your shooting location straight away, you tend to just start feeling like the world’s against you. The weather will shift. You know, something will happen. You’ll need a permit. There’s there’s a problem. There’s just going to be problems with the shooting space and you’ll just always have this overacing. So our overarching sorry feeling constantly that you’re not good enough.

00:08:13:17 – 00:08:44:10

And so when you’re in that start up phase, that shooting space is never good enough no matter what. And then number three, I always say, is self value because you don’t realize it until your value starts to come up, how much you infuse like that. I can’t do this because and you know, all these limits around you and everything that you think you are and then you’re going to get hit straight away with money mindset and selling. So those five things stop people in their tracks. It’s one of those five things.

00:08:44:12 – 00:09:14:27

And for me, building a folio and a product was actually my favorite part. That’s the bit I loved, and it’s probably the reason I survived a business is because I was actually really good at building a folio and building a product. My shooting space, once I learned that holding space for people meant that I make them feel important, wouldn’t matter where they were, whether they’re in an abandoned building or on a beach, how I treat them and make them feel in my service and experience trumps any shooting space.

00:09:14:29 – 00:09:45:24

I mean, when I built my business, I built it in the crappiest old little country garage and I loved it, and it had so much beautiful energy and it didn’t really matter. But when you’re starting out, you think that that’s the problem. And then, of course, your mindset and money and selling. Once you start selling, it’s a value metric. You’re going to find out really quickly how you value money and how you receive money because it will show up straight away when you’re trying to out of business.

00:09:45:26 – 00:09:52:24

So those to me are the five big ones, right? Do you see anything else on there that you’d add? The only thing I can think of is,

00:09:53:12 – 00:10:15:18

Yeah, and I don’t know. This one to me was is a big one. Just through interviewing people and talking to people about their startup is finding time, especially because most people have another full time job. And just trying to balance managing, yeah, managing that business with the family and the job and all of that, and it’s yes. But I think it goes back to learning how to run a business properly. I don’t know. I mean, what do you think?

00:10:15:21 – 00:10:53:25

So what it really comes down for me is you’ve seen it a million times to Nikki. People go to start a business and the first thing they do is create a wage and ironically, they earn about exactly what they used to earn in their job. It’s like you have this mindset that that’s the number where you’re safe and that’s kind of what you attract. No more, no less. So that’s the part that really blows me away. Is this idea that you can start a business that you and you you think it’s not with intention at that point, but your intention is to just make this much money.

00:10:53:27 – 00:11:26:15

If you thought that when you started a business, that’s exactly what you’re going to get. And I’ve seen people do it. I used to earn $400 a week as a paid photographer, the first year of employment self-employment. I earned $400 a week. It was almost like I set this limit that I was allowed to earn . And that’s exactly what I brought into my life. So when I see people come into our network and then they get through those first five stages, they build a folio, they get their shooting space confident with their shooting space. Whatever it is, they start to discover that they had low value.

00:11:26:17 – 00:11:58:24

Maybe they deal with their money issues and they learn to break through selling for me now for words, profitability, systems, balance and growth. All right. So is my business as profitable as it can be? Because the profit margin, the profit margin after you pay all of the people that do what they do in your business, whether they help with marketing or retouching or assistants or makeup, everybody you pay has lived and been paid.

00:11:59:03 – 00:12:31:28

The profit margin is what’s left for you. And if you’ve built a business that’s earning one hundred and fifty thousand two hundred and fifty thousand three hundred and fifty thousand, and you’re not keeping a bet for you, you’re not keeping the lion’s share. And just remember when you start a business, you’re not there to create a wage. You’re there to create an abundant income that you can grow and that takes time. So I want all your focus to go to profitability and systems. We systemize, we create, we systemize, we create.

00:12:32:00 – 00:13:12:28

That’s what makes a business. Strong balance for me is now that you don’t burn out is that you people burn out when they say yes to things they don’t want to do. True. And when they’re not charging what they should charge because they’re not valuing themselves enough. And that feeling of burnout is horrendous. And if you don’t balance who you are, what you charge, what you tell everyone you’re worth, you’re going to burn out. So yeah, the focus has to be on profitability. Refining all of your systems balance, balance, balance, boundaries, boundaries, balance, balance, boundaries, value, boundaries, balance because they’re all the same thing and then growth because you’re going to grow here now.

00:13:13:03 – 00:13:49:02

Do I get associates? Do I trained photographers and step up as the photographer out of being the photographer? Do I get salespeople and so I can focus on only being the photographer? Do I really need to grow my business at all? Maybe I need to grow the experience, grow the average sale and then cut back how often I shoot because I would rather shoot once a week at $5000, then five times a week at $1000 at the stage of my career. So, you know, you’ve got to really think about how you like to work and how it’s going to work for you.

00:13:49:15 – 00:13:51:03

But this is all about refinement.

00:13:51:17 – 00:14:23:00

You said so much in there, and I just I’m trying to keep mental track of the questions I need to ask. So one one thing you said is in this was so true for me was so true for you, and it’s so true for so many people. However much you make is however much you’re just going to let go right back out. So how do people stop just, you know, to get past that? Well, I made forty nine thousand dollars as a social worker, so I’m I’m going to make forty nine thousand dollars as a photographer. But if I make more, I’m just going to keep spending it. Yeah, because I’m not supposed to make more. How? How do we get past that?

00:14:23:15 – 00:14:54:06

You’re not supposed to make more because you gave it no direction and no goal to make more. And then the irony was, is when you do get extra, it’s like, Oh, I’ll buy that lens that I want and that new light that so-and-so has, and I’ll get that, you know, that new gown because I don’t need it, but I’ve got this money and I might as well. It’s because you gave your money. No direction. Money needs direction when it has direction. It not only has clarity, it has a goal and a purpose, and it starts working because you’re focused on that direction.

00:14:54:20 – 00:15:25:08

When you give it no direction and you get excess force through your fingers and you don’t keep it, that feels good because you’re spending it and that feel good that dopamine you’re getting is such a rush, but that rush is comes back to bite you in two months time when you’ve been putting extra on your credit card thinking that that flow of money is just there and it’s not. And because you’re not focused on your income, you don’t know where it’s going and it just feels out of control. So, yeah, you’ve got to give it direction.

00:15:25:10 – 00:15:55:24

You’ve got to do your survival budget, you’ve got to jump up to your thrive budget. You’ve got to make sure that everything you want for yourself that you deserve in your life is included in that thrive budget. And if you’re not, then you need to go back to step number three, which is up your self value game, my friends, because this is where you start making money. Listen to this. Somebody told me this when I was like 25 and I never forgot it. If you trade money for time, you have a job, OK? I trade money for time.

00:15:55:26 – 00:16:26:02

If I broke my ankle and I can’t do my next five shoots, how would I make money? I can’t, because there’s nobody that can do those shoots for me, because that’s my skill. That’s not a business. That’s a job. And when you’re doing tin shoots a week with an average of two thousand and you’re making $20000 a week, I’m still trading money for time. So if I broke my ankle, I still wouldn’t be able to make that $20000. A business is when you make money while you sleep, when you make money, when you’re not there.

00:16:26:14 – 00:17:01:01

So as you start to grow into the self-employment that you have now freed yourself into, now it’s time for you to become a business owner or a very well-paid sole trader, right? And a well-paid sole trader is someone that can work when they want, and they’ve got a great profit margin. They can choose how many shoots a lot of people are working towards that. Other people want staff. I don’t want staff. I want to be a well-paid sole trader and a content creator in my own time and space.

00:17:01:09 – 00:17:06:20

That’s what I love. So make sure you really follow what you want as you’re building this next phase.

00:17:07:20 – 00:17:25:28

And also, like we talked about earlier, is staying in your lane. I feel like that’s a big part of this, you know, the people who are getting to the success. But that’s when burnout comes, when you’re trying to do everything yourself, the things you’re not good at, you’re trying to do all of that. I feel like there’s such a huge part in that your life

00:17:26:16 – 00:17:59:00

Staying in your lane comes in many ways, but I think I’ve said that to you for 10 years and nine years that I’ve known you is because I stayed in my lane. I built a business from nothing, and I’m really good at teaching people steps one, two and three. I’m a startup queen because I know how to take something with no value, make it valuable and sell it. I know that the 12 week startup 28 days, you know, the first two years in business, you know, these are the most powerful workshops I’ve done because that is the most power I have experienced in my life building a business.

00:17:59:02 – 00:18:30:04

So I stay in my lane. You stayed in your lane. Part of the reason we chose you to run our podcast was because you were already building your own podcast. You were already doing it. And when I see people doing it, not talking about it, you weren’t telling me. So I really want to podcast and I’m like, OK, what thousand people have told me that the last two years you started a podcast? What people activate naturally is their superpower. You might not have more than 10 followers.

00:18:30:11 – 00:19:01:04

Like when you started busy as a mother, what was your first like? What did you get 30 likes on your first post? Like, you got to start somewhere, you start somewhere, but you stayed in your lane and I can tell when people are in their lane because you can. It’s like magic, like they have their flow, like they find their voice. They find, you know, you couldn’t have stopped me doing this, even if, like I found every reason not to be an educator, but I keep doing it because it just keeps calling me.

00:19:01:09 – 00:19:23:13

I like photography was the same. You couldn’t have stopped me. Uneducated, no camera, poor dress sense, bad elocution, whatever. I was told everything. No people skills. You didn’t, you couldn’t stop me because when you show up to that, you show up to your your lane. It’s a free lane. It’s just it’s how you are, man. Get in it and just drive. Drive it like you stole it.

00:19:24:04 – 00:19:44:08

So the things that be the things that people shouldn’t be doing like, I know I shouldn’t be doing my own retouching. I know I shouldn’t be doing my own accounting, and I think people get nervous to spend that money on those things. But in reality, it’s going to help them to grow. If you’ve got to let go of those things, like how do people begin to outsource the things they they need to?

00:19:44:15 – 00:20:16:11

Don’t you think you should look at your profitability first and then prioritize your profitability based on the life that you want? So if my profitability is at twenty six per cent and I’m going to lose six per cent profit by giving it to a retoucher, but it’s going to give me back 12 hours of my week, then I’m going to choose the value of outsourcing that based on the profit I get to keep that. Now is the only mindset going forward.

00:20:16:19 – 00:20:48:25

It used to be, I want to look good. I want to reach 200,000. I want to get to this average. I want to be one of SBE top performers. I want to break through selling. But now it’s got to be. How many hours a week do I need to work to get to that profitability? And if I raise my packages, my prices and really streamline my systems and my profitability, I can get that profit margin higher. And when that profit margin is higher, what are the two things that are slowing my business down? Money management and retouching.

00:20:48:27 – 00:21:22:07

So I’m going to outsource those take less of a profit in order to uncork my business and get this bottleneck through. And you can start including what you need in the profit of your company, because now this is your focus. This year is going to be to make more money, keep more money and outsource the stuff that I’m not good at. I’m a terrible accountant. I avoid it and I avoid it and I avoid it. And the best part is, as I always know, it’s simple.

00:21:22:09 – 00:21:41:00

I know how to assign what I’ve spent to the income of my business. I know how to say that’s tax deductible that shouldn’t have been on there, but I will avoid that for six months and then have to do six months of books for an artist doing six months of allocating

00:21:42:18 – 00:21:56:23

taxes. Shoot me now. Yeah, it’s brutal and I pay somebody to do that and she is worth every penny. But I featured her cost into the profit of my product and business.

00:21:56:25 – 00:22:24:08

Well, there is OK if it’s not out yet this, I’m not exactly sure the date that this, this this episode comes out, but something that we’ve been working on behind the scenes, as you know, is a profitability calculator. So that is really good with that. It’s really good. Oh, it’s incredible. Yeah, it will tell you you put in all of your expenses and it will shoot out how many shoots you need to do per month at what sales average. It’s the most not to do multiple

00:22:24:10 – 00:22:31:18

ones, like if you have a different prices for packages for personal branding or quarter, you can do multiple, that’s mind blowing.

00:22:32:04 – 00:22:49:07

So it’s something to stop avoiding, like you said. And like you said, eight out of those 19 other photographers hadn’t even looked at their bank account. You and I used to be like that. We both avoided it. Yeah, because we were afraid. And sometimes when I did look at my account, I was like, Wow, it actually looks better than I thought and sometimes worse.

00:22:49:22 – 00:23:20:11

So tips one two three four five for the start up, if any of those steps are rooted in guilt or shame, OK, then it’s going to be mirorred back to you exponentially. And that’s exactly. Unfortunately, that’s exactly the first thing we have to experience and start up. Now, the second thing you’re going to experience is then you finally get some money and now you don’t know what to do with it. I’m telling you, people, when you look at your debt, when you take control of your debt, you are a power. You are so empowered.

00:23:21:00 – 00:24:04:12

It’s like all that guilt and shame. And it’s shame. It’s guilt and shame. I those two emotions are the two things that stop you from flowing and keeping money is guilt and shame. And if you just check in on the guilt and shame. Sometimes it’s so simple. It’s just like an old belief from childhood. You just sitting around the table and dad and mum said something about money or believe something about money. And then you inherited this belief and and now you can smash through that and like, get going. But all of a sudden I’m seeing people break through and they’re earning hundreds of thousands of dollars, like three of those network, where in the 300 to 500 going where’s my money and I’m like, It’s right there.

00:24:05:11 – 00:24:39:20

So it’s time for you to start taking control of your money, your money mindset and your profitability. And I tell you what, we’re guilt and shame comes up. We just talked about it how hard it is to find people that you can talk to money about that are happy for you to win. Nikki, you and I have a lot of very personal conversations about money. And over the last 10 years, it’s grown, it’s grown into conversations about wealth and investing conversations I was never part of as a working class kid with no education.

00:24:40:01 – 00:25:16:06

Like, we talk about money because we are in a safe place together to talk about money. So I want you to find a Nikki like I have a Nikki. We you to talk about your money openly. You talk about we talk about feelings around money. Like, I remember you would call me when you started your photography studio if u got a no sale or a low sale or it one day somebody like got buyer’s remorse. They told their husband how much they spend, and she rang you and said, I want my money back and you’re all upset and we’d have those money conversations around value and then we keep going.

00:25:16:08 – 00:25:44:20

And then it was profitability, and then it was buying a home and buying a studio. And we just keep growing and I have you for that. So if anybody out there can find a money accountability conversation partner, they have to be on the same flow. And yes, you know, you can’t be with somebody that’s like, that’s not that’s got limited beliefs around money. When you’re trying to open yourself up, you both have to be open to.

00:25:46:26 – 00:25:58:00

Mastering and monitoring your own poor mindset around money, and you do that by when you speak, people hear it reflected back to you and it doesn’t feel good.

00:25:58:11 – 00:26:23:16

Yeah, and they don’t need to be photographers. I mean, it’s basically like an accountability partner where they’re your cheerleader. They’re helping you brainstorm. I remember calling you. I’ll never forget this. I was going to a wedding, my friend Ted and Carly’s wedding, and I was actually shooting the wedding. This was back when I was still doing weddings and I needed a dress and I found a BCBG. It was light pink leather on the top dress. It was $300 and I called you, I’m like, Sue, I’ve never spent $300 on a dress before, like.

00:26:25:17 – 00:26:37:05

I just did it and I bought it, and it was just such a pivotal moment for me that it was OK, I allowed myself to buy the dress. It wasn’t, you know, super exorbitant. I have not spent three hundred dollars again on a dress, but.

00:26:38:27 – 00:26:45:03

I mean, it was just the coolest thing to be able to have you to talk through this silly dress thing that represented so much for me.

00:26:45:05 – 00:27:16:17

But hey, if you’re selling portraits, that’s the first lesson you learn women for big ticket purchases. Women phone a friend. Yeah. So yeah, we phone a friend because we want to feel safe making this decision. And the truth is, as in photography, we phone a friend, we want somebody to make it OK that we’re spending all this money on ourselves and that we deserve it and that we are worth it. I think I distinctly remember saying to you, that is the profit margin on one shoot.

00:27:16:23 – 00:27:26:28

So if you go and do your average sale shoot this month and do an extra one, you’ve covered it and you were like, done. And then two days later you were like, I just bought this shirt

00:27:28:23 – 00:27:30:12

and I was like, No more, no less.

00:27:31:18 – 00:27:55:03

No more, no less. OK, what about let’s talk about Sue? Let’s say you’re at the point where you consistently have a lot of clients. And you know, I know, like you mentioned before, sometimes we get I hate to use the word bored, but a little bit like we’re doing the same thing over and over. Even though our clients love it, our sales are great. What are some other ways if we don’t want to continually be shooting, you know, 10 12 shoots a month to bring in some extra

00:27:55:19 – 00:28:29:20

income or maybe take about it? It is boredom and creatively it’s like soul sucking. Yes, I’ve been there. You’re not growing. And you know, you got to grow. I found other ways creatively to grow in my business when I had to focus on business, not awards, because I I look at Richard Wood, who kept winning awards when I stopped and I was so like a big part of my life was doing that and growing as a photographer, and I’ve watched his work just become world class, and I kind of envy that.

00:28:29:22 – 00:29:01:29

To some stage, I was like, Do I even be that? Should I keep doing that? But I couldn’t grow as a photographer and grow this education, and I had to make a decision, and this is where my heart and soul wanted to be. So, you know, I felt like it wasn’t about me being a better photographer, although I’ve always tried to upskill myself as a photographer. Yeah, and evolve the experience that I give people in my studio because I always want to be a little bit more cutting edge to what’s happening in the world after thirty one years. So to me, you’ve got a choice.

00:29:02:11 – 00:29:34:06

Can I scale or grow this business? OK, this is the first question you have to ask Can I scale and grow this business? So scaling up would be getting associate photographers one to 10 to come into your studio, train them as your photographers work out how you’re going to pay them, and then have multiple shooters. So you do understand that that now opens an avenue for multiple marketing streams because we need to fill those spaces.

00:29:34:08 – 00:30:09:11

And then how are you going to make that work effectively in your business? It’s entirely achievable. I did it. But getting associate photographers means I can do more shoots in a week and I can teach them how to sell and I can lock them in. You can definitely look at bringing in contractors. You can look at bringing in partners. There’s always a side hustle for digital products, and I love teaching people how to create digital products. So the truth is is that if there is a product currently that you could develop in your business that your client would buy, then obviously that’s going to work.

00:30:09:20 – 00:30:49:25

One of the Empower Network to actually are incredible personal branding photographers, but they come from a marketing education background, so they teach so much on their personal branding to the people who are buying the branding on how to use it in their social media that they’re creating products on how to use their personal branding photographs because it’s straight out just a 10 step marketing plan for Instagram. For anybody that wants their personal branding like, think of it, auxillary products, sister companies like Emily in Vancouver, she’s got an incredible business portrait business wedding business.

00:30:50:07 – 00:31:22:14

She because her wedding business is so beautiful. She saw a hole in the market for wedding dresses, opened a sister company to her studio that sells wedding dresses. And those companies max each other and income. Now she has to, you know, parallel businesses that sort of serve each other. So there is always a way forward, a side hustle. You can start at your intermediate phase thinking about becoming a mentor in your industry, an industry leader, an ambassador for brands. But stop trying to sell yourself as a mentor and know this.

00:31:23:02 – 00:31:39:21

Being successful in your business is what makes you an incredible mentor. So if you just focus on constantly becoming bitter in your business, then people that you mentor will also be constantly becoming bitter in their business. So. It’s ways to grow.

00:31:39:29 – 00:32:12:14

I know I keep bringing this up, but staying in your lane, like I remember when I decided I was going to try to make folio boxes and you were like, Nicky, this is not your lane, and I’m like, Yes, I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it. Remember, I ordered all that. I mean, come on, I look back. Dan and I were dying, laughing the other day. Like, remember when I thought I was going to build folio boxes in my garage? Like, so not my superpower at all. You know, it’s like, again, it goes back to doing what you’re lane is you know, because I too, I have two little kids. I didn’t want to be shooting so much all the time.

00:32:12:16 – 00:32:13:21

And so I was like, OK, yeah,

00:32:14:15 – 00:32:56:09

I don’t force it. That’s the trick. If you’re just quiet for a moment, you’ll just see what it is that you have. And I think the best way to look at it is what gets me the most likes online. OK. What gets me the most likes online? Is it my photography? Is it when I’m talking telling a narrative? Is it when I post a picture about me? Something personal? Is it when I like? What are you doing? And then not what are you doing? But what are you saying when you’re getting the most hits? So when I first blew up as an educator in 2010, the theme was pretty strong.

00:32:56:17 – 00:33:26:19

The videos that were getting the most hits on YouTube were posing multiple body types, which meant nobody was teaching that and they weren’t. Startup business. I was getting massive traffic on startup business because that’s my powerhouse, right? And then the third one was my fear talk talking about fear and self value, because if you don’t face that, you can’t grow. So I knew really quickly what my lane was. I could see your lane really quickly.

00:33:27:10 – 00:34:03:00

You’re a great blogger, and you did it really naturally. So that tells me blog to podcast is pretty easy step. And then you’re just an amazing connector of people. So, you know, it was easy to see that at the base level, but then you’ve got to just throw yourself in and feel it and then let it happen. Don’t force anything. Yeah, what are people in your audience asking for? You know, so people would follow me and they’d say, Do you do workshops? Do you mentor? Have you written a book like, do you do videos? I want videos.

00:34:03:03 – 00:34:35:20

They were asking me for things because they were seeing me and my brand and my voice. So I would just go home after these talks and write down videos, books, mentoring workshops. Because yes, they would telling me what they wanted. You know, it’s right in front of you. Your superpower is right in front of you. If you’re forcing it or you feel like you’re forcing it, you’re on the right freeway. You just might be in the wrong lane. Just change lanes. Chill out. Go into cruise control and just listen. Listen to what’s around you. What lights you up, what you’re doing every day without being paid.

00:34:36:06 – 00:34:37:05

It’s right there.

00:34:37:24 – 00:34:51:27

I know I always get the most kind of traction, I guess, on social media when I show my face. Yeah. And I was like, because I was doing this exercise that you’re talking about and I’m like, All right, let me see, what do people want? And I’m like, I guess that means I need to show my face more.

00:34:52:09 – 00:35:23:22

Well, I’ll tell you why you have a split audience because you serve clients, but you also are educating and you’re an industry leader in the sense that you’re a photographer that’s built a podcast and built businesses and you mentor for SBE. So I would think that your following would be 90 per cent photographers and 10 per cent clients because you have a bigger following. So the people who are liking you and what you do in the photo industry are liking your images over your work and the clients that do like your work are just a smaller number.

00:35:24:21 – 00:35:45:02

So same with me. I nowadays I can post to shoot and get 7000 likes, but if I post a portrait of me, I’ll get 12000 and it’s because people are following the brand that people are mostly liking. Is me as an educator, not me as a photographer, you know? So that’s probably why we’re getting that.

00:35:45:06 – 00:36:08:21

You brought up something to where I think I think when people think about I want some sort of other income stream, they think they need to sell to photographers, but you don’t. No. It’s you can like, think about what your clients need, like even just what you’ve said with for personal branding, you could sell templates for Instagram, for Facebook and make make it for them. Show them exactly what it would look like, and then it’s exactly like them with a template.

00:36:09:02 – 00:36:44:02

And we were talking about digital products last week with the creators and with all that network, and one of them is like, I’ve created a workshop, a six week workshop to empower women. And to teach them how to go for job interviews, to go back into the workforce. And I was like, Well, that’s fantastic. That’s an in-person event at your studio where you can potentially, you know, because just because someone hasn’t been in the workforce doesn’t mean that they’re broken or, you know, bottomed out or lower socioeconomic, they just don’t have lost their confidence.

00:36:44:04 – 00:37:19:18

Maybe they had children, they didn’t get a chance to go back. Maybe their newly divorced, who knows whatever their story is. But that to me is, you know, an auxiliary product now. And I was like, You could also build that. You could monetize that. You could make that a regular thing. You could then photograph every single person that has gone through that workshop and then tell their story and use that in your marketing. And there are so many ways to create things like this. Another one was doing a personal branding shoot for two and a half thousand dollars, but then spending two hours coaching them on how to use the images.

00:37:19:20 – 00:37:53:04

I was like, That is a twelve hundred dollar coaching session. Oh yeah, totally. So a lot of my people were like photographing personal branding, doing it two and a half thousand dollar sale and then coaching these people for two hours on how to use their marketing. I was like, that is a twelve hundred dollar product. You could create videos, you could create downloadable guides that they purchased as a package. So you’re not only learning how to use all of these images and your marketing, you’re getting really incredible marketing ideas from these gurus and they really are marketing gurus.

00:37:53:06 – 00:38:30:28

So because it just blew my mind. But yeah, you can open so many different doors for yourself by just following that purpose. And and what I see it as an intermediate business the folio turns from, is it good enough and is it a professional standard? And is it priced OK to really being one of purpose? Like this is this is the narrative I have now. I found my voice. This is my client. This is who I’m going after, and this is what I’m putting out to the world. And I feel like once you get there, you’re you already have found another stream or another parallel that lights you up.

00:38:31:12 – 00:38:35:13

Yeah, yeah. Whether it’s in marketing or mentoring, you’ve already found it.

00:38:35:21 – 00:38:56:11

Yeah, yeah, OK. So for people, though, who are still at that phase of. OK. I’ve had my business, I’m finally the snowball has started, I’m getting these regular clients. They’re not necessarily looking for different income streams at this point. Is it about dialing in service, raising prices? You know, how do we get them to increase their income?

00:38:56:27 – 00:39:29:10

Well, the thing is, so the biggest thing one about Empower Network stood up and said, I know I need to raise my prices and as I, why are you crying right now? Like, it’s so bizarre, isn’t it, that just saying that simple thing was making you stand there and cry? And I was like, the people who call you next week won’t know what your prices are. The people who you’ve sold to, who do know your old prices. If they come back, give them low prices. If they’re good clients, if they’re not tell them the new prices and you’ve lost nothing.

00:39:30:12 – 00:40:02:29

What is the thing that is making you cry over saying this right now? And why is it a thing? Because it’s tied directly to our value. And there is a fear of being rejected when you put your prices up or a fear of being told that you’re not good enough, which is just a fear of rejection. So it’s so weird that we go through this emotional crisis to put a percentage up. But then somebody told me when I was in business in 2005, if I put my prices up by five per cent and just do five per cent increase, just work it out on a calculator.

00:40:03:06 – 00:40:25:17

What is a five percent increase on the packages I have versus the amount of shoots I did last year and add that up? And that’s how much more money you would have for yourself had you done that 12 months ago? And it’s this weird value rejection. Fear. It’s so it’s so ridiculous and we do it to ourselves.

00:40:27:04 – 00:40:39:17

Oh, it’s so frustrating. You’ve always got to get so annoyed with your own scarcity mentality that you’re like, you know, I had to just like, go get out of my way.

00:40:39:22 – 00:40:41:11

Seriously, what the fuck?

00:40:41:13 – 00:40:41:28

Yeah.

00:40:42:00 – 00:40:44:04

Like, I to say that to just like sit out

00:40:44:06 – 00:40:46:10

of my way, shut up and get out of my way.

00:40:46:12 – 00:40:55:04

I said the same thing to myself. I love how you just said that. It’s like getting annoyed and irritated with yourself. Like, come on, like you are better than this. Like, seriously, get over it.

00:40:55:18 – 00:41:28:01

Yeah, just stop talking and stop putting it in the front of your mind that you’re not good enough by talking constantly about not being good enough. It’s exhausting. And the best part is is I must have been so exhausting back then to the people that supported me. No wonder I felt unsupported because nobody could possibly meet my needs because I was just not meeting my own needs. So it’s like, you know, for you people out there that are being needy, you’re exhausting.

00:41:29:05 – 00:41:34:13

And the only reason I put up with you is because I was exactly the same. And, you know, I simply don’t believe that.

00:41:34:25 – 00:41:44:27

Yeah, it is definitely frustrating hearing something. Someone complain about the same thing and not take any action or make any changes whatsoever. So let’s talk a little bit on that like action.

00:41:44:29 – 00:41:47:03

I remember when you used to make me feel like that.

00:41:49:26 – 00:41:54:08

I remember when that was you. Oh, up in the next

00:41:54:10 – 00:41:55:12

morning, sorry.

00:41:55:23 – 00:41:58:17

And we go, You’re right, and I’d go, Ah.

00:42:02:00 – 00:42:09:09

oh, I have some friends in my life right now. I love them dearly, but I’m like, Oh my gosh, OK. What changes are you going to make?

00:42:09:29 – 00:42:11:18

Yeah, this is public right

00:42:14:03 – 00:42:15:20

now. Our friends are listening.

00:42:16:13 – 00:42:32:10

They know who they are. I say it to them. Trust me. OK, so let’s talk for this. Just, you know, the last couple of minutes about taking action because this is it’s a new year. It’s goal setting, but it’s also taking action. You can’t just say it and then hope that it magically appears at your door.

00:42:32:12 – 00:43:04:13

Yep, I’m an activator. I will activate. I spend a lot of time focusing on what I want and then I activate it. I do it with fear. I do it unpracticed. I do it without perfection. And I do it without finishing properly because if I don’t start, I won’t learn. I am someone that has to do something to learn it. Like I can watch a video and I can read a book and I can listen to a podcast.

00:43:04:26 – 00:43:37:09

But that’s not how I learn. All that does is gives me a doorway into something I want to try. For me, I have to do it hands-on, or it’s just not going to stick and anything you show me hands on, I will master it. And if you show it to me and it excites me, I will master it and I will master it, and I will be better than you at it. And I will not stop and nobody will out master me in that moment.

00:43:37:11 – 00:44:08:09

Nobody will outwork me in that moment. And that was all I had was activation and consistency and hard work. But at the same time, I made sure that if it didn’t lock me up, if it wasn’t going to change me, make me grow self-develop wasn’t going to develop my money, my business, my brain. I just wasn’t attached to it anyway. So what is just going after the joy that I wanted? What did I do that that got me here? That was so remarkable? Nothing.

00:44:08:11 – 00:44:40:18

I just took action on what I wanted. What did I do? Nikki, I’m not braver than you. I’m not more courageous than you. I am not richer than you. I did not grow up with better parents than you. What did I do that was so extraordinary? Nothing. I just focused on that action every single day. I just focused on it, you know, and and I just keep seeing evidence that I was good and seeing evidence that it was working and seeing evidence that I can make money and that I am valuable.

00:44:40:20 – 00:45:19:13

And after a lifetime of evidence of not good enough. I was seeing this beautiful evidence that I am enough and that I have something of value to offer this world and I can receive income in equal exchange for that. And now I can teach others how to do the same. So I’m just an activator and you activate. You have to have certainty and conviction in order to get clarity. When I want something, I’ll think about it until I am so certain I would tattoo it on my forehead. Same.

00:45:19:15 – 00:45:55:19

Conviction is a powerful force. And when you are uneducated and you don’t feel like you’ve got much chance, much support, it was only my certainty and conviction that made me show up every day and do what I wanted, and I knew what I had to do to get it. Consistency comes next. Can grow antsy. Is it the next step breaking down the next step? Getting excited about that every day? There is a moment where you stop being not good enough, and I’ll tell you what I just wrote this last night. There is a moment when you stop being not good enough, and I’ll tell you when it is, it’s when you stop letting life happen to you.

00:45:56:04 – 00:46:27:15

And when you realize that when you do your thought work and your emotional mastery that you are intentionally creating your day, your week, your year, your future, your income, the people in your life and how deep a meaning that you find is. You’re doing all of that with the thoughts about yourself. You take charge of I create my life. I don’t wake up now in an emotional state. I wake up in a state that is I can create whatever I want. Yes. And I just need to get myself into a right headspace.

00:46:27:19 – 00:46:49:00

That’s the moment where I no longer felt like it was out of control that it was happening to me. That was the moment where I realized I was building what I want, and I’m in charge of this. The world is reflecting back your emotions. Yes. What you’re seeing is what you’re being. You shift what you’ll be taking place to see something so more powerful for you.

00:46:49:23 – 00:47:28:22

Yeah, it’s such a good place to be, and I can’t say I can pinpoint when this shift happened to me, but as you know my, you know, Dan, my husband severely injured his hand and he’s an electrician and he’s not going be able to work for a long time. Thankfully, I’m able to support him. But a conversation we had the other day, and it’s just so great. It makes me like, so great that we’re on the same page with it. I was like, Maybe this didn’t happen to you. What happened for you? How can we use like severing a finger and, you know, like as a positive and we were able to talk through how this didn’t happen to you, what happened for you? We’re going to make some changes with.

00:47:30:03 – 00:47:52:28

Just the way that we’re living in him. He doesn’t want to be working all the time, he doesn’t need to be working all the time, so we’re going to start focusing more on what he can do at home, on our property with our family and just for us to have more balance. Had he not done this to his finger, I don’t know that he would have opened his mind to the reality that he does not have to work a lot.

00:47:53:06 – 00:47:55:24

He doesn’t come with big jolts. He can do

00:47:55:26 – 00:48:29:13

the things that bring him joy, bill dirt jumps, work on our property, just work on the House like all of those things. And anyway, so I don’t know that if I had not ever worked on my self value, my letting go of guilt and shame feeling I’m enough, I’m worthy. All of the things that you’ve taught me over these the years that I’ve implemented, I would have been freaking out. What are we going to do it like just not allowing it to be something that maybe we can make happen for us instead of to us?

00:48:29:24 – 00:49:01:02

Exactly right. You know, you’ve got to continually grow to like every time I think I’ve grown exponentially in one area, it’ll show me that I need to grow in this area. And at first, the lessons were coming so hard and fast. I was like, When do they stop? Like, can I just have a reprieve where I don’t feel this life pain all the time? And I now don’t have that life pain in my life, but you know, you’re asking to grow. So it’s a big step, I’ll  challenge everybody out there with one question.

00:49:02:11 – 00:49:33:19

You know what is love? And if you could describe love in one word, what would that would be? And if you think it’s acceptance like love is acceptance when somebody loves us, they accept us as tribe and fear of rejection, that human desire is to be accepted into the tribe and to be loved. So self-love is self-acceptance, right? And it’s hard to love yourself when you don’t do the things you want to do.

00:49:34:05 – 00:50:05:12

So self-love for me is doing for the self. Self-love is building the business that you want, the business you want to have. Making the money that you want to make and keeping it for yourself like that doing for their self. And if you’re not doing for yourself, it’s very easy to feel resentful because you’re often doing for others. And it’s more important that you put your needs first because you cannot.

00:50:05:14 – 00:50:43:08

You cannot meet your own needs or anybody else’s until you actually work out what yours are. So if doing for yourself is your primary focus from listening to this? Write that down. What am I doing for myself? We expect a lot of people to Labor’s accept us, validate us, nurture us and support us when we don’t do it for ourselves. So what are you doing for yourself? And if you get angry at other people for not supporting this path, you’re on or not supporting this business, it’s because you’re not supporting this business and you’re actually frustrated with yourself.

00:50:43:18 – 00:51:36:06

It’s always about you. So if you think about what you’re not getting right now, that’s what you need to start doing for your self. Self-love is doing for yourself. I need you to sit down and really ask yourself, What have you been doing for yourself lately and have you been showing up for yourself? Have you been looking after yourself? Have you been looking at the year end? Come your money, your future? Have you been looking after your body, your fitness, your health? Have you been looking after your wealth, your relationships? You know, like, are you doing for you? And if that list has a whole lot of doing for others, you need to start writing some stuff down because you will not get anything more personally until you start doing for yourself.

00:51:36:16 – 00:51:38:19

Mm-Hmm. It’s my soapbox

00:51:38:29 – 00:51:45:16

and doing things that bring you joy as well. You might think you’re doing for yourself, but you hate it and you’re just like you said, soul sucking.

00:51:46:00 – 00:52:25:10

Yes. Like, like, I changed working out on my. I have to work out. I’m 50. If I don’t work, if I start losing muscle, I get hips injury, shoulder injury, like thinking I’m working with an old body now. I don’t want to work out every day I have to. So I was like, I wrote Workout on my calendar and it’s just so easy to skip. Like, I look at that booking and there’s nothing else there. So, oh, I could go and write content or watch a movie like I can think of a million things I’d rather do than that workout. So I just simply changed it to body time, and I was like, You can dance, you can stretch, you can meditate and walk around the block.

00:52:25:12 – 00:52:50:11

You can go for a powered power cycle. You can run, you can lift weights, just move your body. All go. If you’re not feeling well, go and have a massage, but still body time. Yeah, once I changed it to body time, I now do it. I love it. I do it every day. I’m like, Oh body time, what do I feel like doing? And I suddenly don’t feel the pressure of having to go to the gym because gyms are places of great suffering.

00:52:52:08 – 00:53:05:17

And I don’t want to go. I don’t like it. People running on the rat wheel, just staring at the wall, I just does my hidden. So I’m like, It’s changed the way I do for myself, and I’m working on that every single day, doing more for myself.

00:53:06:06 – 00:53:12:25

Awesome. Well, I think that’s the perfect way to start this new year. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was awesome.

00:53:13:05 – 00:53:44:21

Congratulations on a million downloads, one million times people said, I want to listen to these stories, and I do recall a time after a really great conversation we had about money and mindset in 2013, where we got to the end of it and you looked at me and you said we should have recorded that. You said people would have really wanted to hear that. Yeah. And this morning, as I was jumping on this call to celebrate a million downloads, I was like, Well, Nikki, we did record that.

00:53:45:28 – 00:54:22:04

We did record those talks. Yeah. And here we are. Oh, congratulations. What an incredible achievement. And that’s another thing doing for the self is one thing. You’ve got to take a moment. Those 19 photographers that stood up and told me their stories, this incredible success stories. We’re still talking like they were newbies. Five thousand seven thousand dollar sales averages. They weren’t comparing themselves because you just are constantly seeing people that look better than you and that’re selling more than you and look wealthier than you and have their shit together better than you do.

00:54:22:06 – 00:55:01:03

And you just constantly you don’t realize where you’re at. You don’t realize what you’ve achieved. If there is one thing that I need you also to do other than the list about doing for the self. It would really be to just look back over the last three years at what as to what you’ve learned and mastered the growth and just, you know, acknowledge it, celebrate it. But I tell you what is more important. It’s. It’s accountability for yourself, because you’re like ticking these like skills off in these next steps, if you like, look at me achieving this, look at me achieving this.

00:55:01:16 – 00:55:32:15

But more importantly, it’s quantifiable. It’s actually quantifiable. Sometimes you feel like you’re getting nowhere. But when you see those results, that’s quantifiable steps to success that you took and mastered and you might be at the beginning of the staircase. But if you just take a moment to realize what you’ve learned and how far you’ve come, that you’re not that person that used to have that old mindset, nobody’s going to pay this and my town, everyone. But now that’s not who you are.

00:55:32:27 – 00:55:37:12

So have a look at what you’ve achieved and then start doing

00:55:37:18 – 00:55:38:14

Some more

00:55:38:16 – 00:55:39:03

for yourself.

00:55:39:16 – 00:55:49:26

I just I have to say thank you to to Ashley Taylor and Kevin Condie for doing our clubhouse versions of they do our Thursday episodes. I have to say thank you to them. They are incredible. So, yeah,

00:55:50:19 – 00:55:52:02

two fantastic people.

00:55:52:10 – 00:55:57:26

I know it’s true. It’s true. Well, thank you again. So we will chat again next time.

00:55:58:00 – 00:56:28:27

Yeah. Happy holidays, everybody out there. I hope. Twenty to twenty twenty two is going to be a year of reconnection replenishment, rebirth, starting out rebuilding. What about just refocusing and you’re going to go to the top of the list there, business owner. So start going and doing some really cool stuff and let’s see how you go this year.

00:56:28:29 – 00:56:35:19

Action taker, dream maker, problem solver. You can do it. Solution Finder. Go for it.

00:56:36:28 – 00:57:09:20

Thank you so much for listening to the Portrait System Podcast. Your five-star reviews really help us to continue what we do. So, if you like listening, would you mind giving us a review wherever you listen? I also encourage you to head over to SueBryceEducation.com, where you can find all of the education you need to be a successful photographer. There are over 1,000 on-demand educational videos on things like posing, lighting, styling, retouching, shooting, marketing, sales, business, and self-value. 

There’s also the 90 Day Startup Challenge, plus so many downloads showing hundreds of different poses. We have to-do checklists for your business, lighting PDFs, I mean truly everything to help make you a better photographer and to make you more money. Once again, that’s SueBryceEducation.com.