When I started my photography business-like for real- I thought I had to do it all, all by myself. I quickly realized how much work there was to do, so many hours to put in, "OMG I'm going to burn out", I thought.
I really wanted to run a successful photography business, I really wanted to make it. But there had to be a better way to work than working ALL. THE. TIME.
Is this resonating with you?
When I got to the point of exhaustion and near burnout (again), I knew I had to make a change. SO I sat down, made a list of what was taking up a lot of my time and what I was willing to "give up".
As photographers, we have a huge attachment to all areas of our business. We have a hard time trusting that others will do a better job than us. Let me tell you, I had a lot of self-talk to get to the point where I could trust someone else with my "baby".
After my analysis, the two things I decided I was willing to give up were social media and editing. These were the two tasks that were really holding me back.
For my social media manager hiring, I had criteria and this was a process. She had to:
be a mom
have done a session with me
have experience in social media
have a social media presence
As you can imagine this significantly narrowed down my choice to find someone. BUT I finally did.
Giving up the social media side of my business allowed me TIME to work on other things such as writing a course, focusing on business strategies and marketing. MAJOR WIN.
The second task I gave up was editing. This was an even BIGGER let go. The thing was, I had mastered my editing and I was able to edit quickly but the issue I was encountering was the VOLUME of sessions that needed to be edited.
Editing is part of my brand's look and feel. I was extremely picky about this and went through a very long onboarding process with the agency that now takes care of my editing. Because I had mastered my editing, it was a matter of them applying my preset properly and matching my brand. With good communication and direction, it was been one of the best decisions I have ever made.
So you see, a successful business doesn't just take one person. It takes a team. And you should never feel like you need to run your business solo.
Think about any successful business that runs with only one person...I can't even think of one.
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