Lessons

Lesson Info

Introduction

28 days! Wow! I'm gonna start off the morning by talking about the challenges. I wanna talk about the challenges fast, and give as much information about them as I can. A, if you're already doing them. B, if you're wondering if they're going to help you, and you haven't got them yet. C, if you've looked at it and thought I don't know if that challenge is for me, and why would I do that challenge? So, I'm going to invite as many fast questions as I can, through the chat, through Kenna and Susan, and then you guys here are going to give me as much as you can, as well. So, we're gonna open up all the challenges first. Okay, then I've been talking a lot this last month about value. I've been talking a lot about product and pricing. I've been talking a lot about what I believe is the number that you should put on your work, in order to make money, and I've been very vocal about that. And, last week on our Monday chat for Q&A, one of our fabulous loungers, who's always in our lounge and ...

a great supporter of Creative Live, J Morgan Images, she threw out something in the chat and I challenged her, and her and I Skyped over the weekend. So, I'm gonna show you that and I'm gonna show you how we're going to transform the way she thinks and feels about money, the way she thinks and feels about marketing herself. And, that seemed to be the two things that keep coming up. After showing you 28 days of shooting, you keep saying to me, how do I sell it? How do I price it? And, how do I market it? Okay, I know now how to shoot it, how do I sell it? How do I price it? How do I market it? So, after lunch we're gonna take you back through there and we're really gonna spend the afternoon talking about making money. I'm gonna show you how to clear any money blocks, just like I showed you how to clear fear blocks. Now, who've worked on their fear blocks after the first 28 days? They were huge right? And, I have received more emails about that one talk about fear in the first 28 days than I've had in any of my Creative Lives. So, just really transforming letters and emails from people that are confronting their biggest blocks. Well, today, I'm going to do the exactly the same thing, and we're gonna discuss your money blocks because it's really interesting. When I talked about fear, everybody started to cry, but when I talk about money, everyone folds their arms. It's a very difficult subject to talk about. It comes down to how you were brought up, is a really big factor in how you feel about money. It comes down to how you value yourself, and it's also really a hard thing to talk about. But, a lot of people refuse to believe that the income that they make, they're in charge of. Everybody likes to blame the economy, blame somebody, anybody but themselves. So, this afternoon I'm gonna reach in and expose some of your hugest blocks around money. I'm really challenged Jessica when she wrote that in the chat last week. I challenged her and she came to the table with everything she's got to show you. So, she has made herself vulnerable, she's letting me show you her PDF, she's letting me show you my critique of it, my critique of it was very hard. But, then I helped her go on a new direction and I hope that now she can create more and more what she will cause she's a very clever girl. So, we're gonna show you all of that. And, it's very difficult to watch. But, in doing it and allowing, her allowing us to see what she's done will allow you all to not only identify with her, but face your own demons there because then what came up for her was remarkable for me to see because I was there, I was that girl five years ago. I'm also am somebody who never made money as a photographer until the last eight years, and I had to learn all about what my value was, what my value was as a photographer and a human being. And, I had to learn how to put that into my business model, so, I've done that and now money flows for me. And, the days of feeling sick when I would go to my letter box and because bills would be there and the days of juggling money, lying about money, and feeling generally, incredibly just uncomfortable about money, talking about pricing. I was unable to do that. How I ever started a business, I do not know. But, it was the single most confronting time of my life. And, I had to remove those blocks in order to get paid. Now, I've always had two things, when I speak at WPPI or when I speak anywhere, and right from the very first Creative Live, I was never interested in showing you slide shows about me. I'm not interested in talking about I bought an X-300 Minolta when I was 18 years old. Who cares? I was only ever interested in showing you two things, three things, one was how I shoot the way I shoot because my brand looked different from everybody else's. Two, was how to make money because I learned how to do that and I now make a lot of money and I'm very comfortable making money now for the first time ever in my life, and, three, was why I love it so much that even when people told me glamour photography should never, ever, ever be, that I loved it so much that nobody could ever stop me from doing it. And those are the only three things I ever wanted to tell you guys. And, so I've done that now, I have laid it out for you and when we started 28 days, I said I want you to grade your business and these are the things that are gonna get in your way. And, today, to finish it, the feedback has been show me more about marketing, show me more about confidence, show me more about pricing it confidently, believing that I'm worth that and then show me how to make money doing it. So, I'm going to confront you on everything to do with money and sales today until you feel so uncomfortable in your own self, you will only be able to go forward and make money doing this. This world is abundant. And, you're choice to struggle, is your choice. And, if you can open up to that today, if you can open your mind up to the possibility that you're the only person standing in your way, then I can help you with that, okay? Because that's where I was. And this is not, this is tried and true. I've done it, I've experienced it, I've experienced it as a newbie photographer. For those of you sitting there right now saying, "You know, you're so lucky." I don't have a rich husband, yet. I don't have a trust fund. Okay? I'm never going to get one. My parents are blue collar. Okay, not even white, blue collar. I watched my parents worked their hands to the bone to pay a mortgage and I just watched that for a whole lifetime. And, my father, he said to me when I was in my early 30s, he said, in late 20s, sorry, he said, "Don't, don't own a business, "it's too much stress. "Just go and do your job really well "and get paid well to do it." And, I listened my blue-collared father cause that's what they'd done, they are honorable people, my parents. They work hard for their money. And, I worked hard for my money. I worked so hard for my $400 a week. And, then I started my own business and within 15, within 15 weeks, I was getting up to the $20,000 in turnover and I went to my mom and dad and I said to them, "You never told me this. "You never told me I could do this." But, they told me I could do anything, so, you know, but they never told me this. And, my mom looked at me and she said, "Because that's cause we couldn't." And I said, "But, you never told me I could do this, "look at this money, it's just everywhere! "And I've always thought there was not enough!" And mom said, "Well, here's the thing." My mom and dad bought a business when they were 22 years old. Can you imagine my parents have been together since they're 15, sweethearts, so, at 22 they've kind of been in a long-term relationship. They bought a business and it was a bread delivery service. Really good business and it failed within a year. So, my mom had a baby, pregnant with a second and then I was about to be three kids under two and a half. I was number three. And, my dad had to go and work night shift at the steel mill to pay, you know, for his young family, 23 years old, can you imagine having, you know, kids at this young? And, they failed, and I asked mom, "Why? "How did dad fail at business?" And, dad wasn't in the room at the time, so, he doesn't even know that I know this. He said, "They could never ask for money." Okay? So, at 23 years old, my father, his father had died at 15, my dad was 15 when his father died and my father gave up everything to run the family business, which then failed and then he got another business and he failed. So, he went to work. He did what everybody else did. I can't run a business so I'm gonna go to work and he worked his lifetime. And, I realized my dad had the left for leaving but no right for receiving. He could never ask somebody for money so, people never paid him because they didn't have to. And, that's the thing, people don't pay you, if they can keep their money, they won't pay you. So, my father never spoke up for himself, he never said, "This is my worth, "my family needs money, "my business needs money." He never stood up for that and until you learn to give money and then receive money, and remember that was it, left for leaving, right for receiving. And, until you learn what that 50/50 is, that one sentence from my mother changed my life. It changed my life because I walked back into my business and I said, "I will never, ever fail at this "because I am not going to be afraid "to ask people for money." I was terrified of asking people for money. And, I didn't believe that I was worth that. So, today that's where we're gonna be, 28 challenges! Everything I've taught you is the entire, the entire structure of how I shoot, how I pose, how I connect with people, how I sell, how I build my presses, how I build my product. None of that will be successful for you if you do not work on who you are and what you believe. I believe your business is in direct proportion to how you believe about yourself and the value you have for yourself right now. I believe that I significantly changed that when I changed that focus within myself. So, let's talk about it today, let's go for it! I wanna know where you were challenged, I wanna know if these challenges don't apply for you, I don't mind curly questions as they come in just throw them at me. You know, anything you can say, this is what I do, this is, I haven't just shown you something that I made up or something that I've written. This is what I do, this is my life's work and I'm open to talking about any part of it, including the struggles and I'm happy to do that. So, let's do it!