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Student Hurdles to Success

in that whole thing the time management and self doubt and making excuses and nowhere to shoo in all of that stuff. I think this applied to me either recently or has in the past, and those are all really good tools to turn it around in in power and inspire me and go forward and take care of it. This is also why it's really good toe have each other because if you're going through a moment of self doubt, like I do all the time. About a week ago, I sent a message to the quad saying, Oh my God, what the heck am I doing? I'm going. Hooker Bulls told me I could go on creativelive. I'm going after dozens star my crazy, you know, they sell. The moments were like, I'm crazy and they're like, Calm down, we got your back, You're going to be fine And we would never let you do anything that would make you look foolish. So I said, Okay, then get your butt over here cause I'm going through my whole presentation and you tell me what I need to change. And they did. They sat there afterwards, of mumbo j...

umbo not even being boudoir photographer is just to support me, you know, And that's when you need somebody to going back to the community just to say to, you know, to run your self doubt by or to run your hurdles by and haven't said you listen, we're gonna get over that hurdle with you. We're gonna push you over that hurdle, so make sure you know, you guys after this you talk about your hurdles and be able to admit your hurdles and yourself down and all that is even hard sometimes to to be able to say, Listen, I'm really struggling at this. Can I have help? It's the whole negative self talk. I'm really bad at that and just, I guess live without regret his just give it a try and see what happens. And, yeah, I'm going home and rebuilding my changing my whole business model. And after three days, I'm gonna just change everything and see where I land, I guess, especially for somebody like you, Tracy. And I'm sure that there's people at home. They're like this to that. Have full time jobs. Really. Accountant and I couldn't figure out the pricing issue. Thank you wake up at night, you know, losing sleep, thinking I'm gonna count. Why can't I figure out how to make money? Because it's emotionally with somebody else's money. It's not emotional, but the thing is something for somebody like you who has her income coming in. Who's paying the bills with her job? You should be taking crazy risks with your business because if you don't make any money next month, you're not losing any money either. And something else that you said is exactly if I have two choices, if I want to make no money, I can sit on my butt or bust my butt. So wouldn't you rather sit on your butt, make no money, make no money, right that clicked with me and like, Well, I'd rather just sit on my butt? Exactly. Dio yeah, so definitely, definitely. I'm. Oddly enough, I think my biggest hurdle is is feeding off the fear of people that love me and but feeding off the people that I know love me but are worried that I might fall and that they want everything that I want and they want me to be successful, but because they're worried, I want to go forth in and I want to say I'm the boss. I'm in charge. Don't worry about it, but because I loved it and I want I just I love them and I love that they're worried for me. But just that having their there were there worry. I mean, if it affects the way that I view stuff because I don't want them to worry for me, but they are wearing because they just they want success for me. And they want me to be happy. But it's like there they're putting it on me, which I mean, that's that's a lot to walk around with. Sometimes goes. Well, I would take a take a guess, because I know you well enough in the last few days that they're not worried about you because I don't think anyone's worried about you. Courtney, you're pretty strong person. You're really fun to be around. I think they're rooting for you. And I don't want you to use that as a negative. I want you to use it as a positive. What convey? If they're rooting for you, What can they do to help push you up? Can you turn to them and you're having problems and say, Hey, push me through this. I'm having a moment of self doubt and have somebody CD. You're awesome. Courtney. You're kidding me. You totally got this. You know, I know your husband. I've spent some, you know, we sent some time with him the past few days. Believe me, he's rooting for you. You know he wants this for you. He wrote on my Facebook page. He was like, thank you for inspiring my wife. Thank you for spending time with her. You have supported people in your life, take advantage of it. They love you, so you might feel the pressure of that. But they're rooting for you. And I would try Teoh to either talk it out with them or take the pressure off and just say, you know what? If I take the pressure off and I'm true to myself, I will succeed and they will be really proud of me. And you won't have to worry about that. Anyone staying you, Kourtney making me cry before my turn even. Um, probably. My biggest hurdle is just believing in myself. Um, I think I mentioned this before. I have a really hard time have this unreasonable expectation that I'm supposed to be really good at something right from the start. And so, um, it makes it hard to sort of Ah, I guess they're not failures. But when something doesn't go well to get up and keep going anyways and keep on doing it and try again, try again. And so now I feel like that is part of the process, and and that's okay. And I just have to keep her money myself. That so thank you. You know, I always whenever I have these moments where I feel the same way, I feel defeated or I have a huge challenge. And sometimes I just want to deal with the stress. It's just aggravating. I should just give this all up and go get a desk job and let it be somebody else's stress. My husband says to me, Hey, babe, these are the moments that separate the men from the boys when he says that unlike yeah, totally not letting anybody get the best of me kind bigger than this problem, I can figure this problem out. I am not letting this thought me, and it is true it. That's what separates the men from the boys at that given moment. That's when most photographers or most business people turn on. Say, this is not for me. This is stressful. This is hard. It's aggravating. And owning your own business is all of that. I don't care what your business is. You know, People always say, Oh, my boss makes so much money. Yeah, well, your boss also takes all the risk. The boss also takes all the stress home at night. You know, it is not easy to own your own business. So when you're going through that moment just to remind yourself, this is the moment that separates the men from the boys. Right? And I have owned a lot of businesses and I've done a lot of things, and I know that I have it in me to push past that, and I do push past that. The thing is, is that I'm miserable the whole time because I'm so hard on myself. So I will continue to to go through that process. But now I think I'm just gonna be a little bit nicer to myself about it. Absolutely. Thank yourself. Yeah. Yeah, you. Nobody else is going to do it. I don't care if you're married. You have great parents, brothers and sisters. At the end of the day, you really know what you need. You need to take care of yourself, You know for sure and be good to yourself. If you're not good to yourself, nobody else will be right. Thanks. 10. I'm not ready at I'm sorry that this is a workshop about photography, but it turns out it's a workshop about life and all the challenges that we think we see. But really, we're just, um like you said to me if you could just get of your own way and I was like, Yeah, that's it. I'm the one that's placing these challenges, and it's like you have so much to offer. Just go do it. And so I'm actually prepared this year to have a lot of failures and learning experiences. Like to thank you. Thank you. Can you say what you said this year is about, like in perfect action? Over What was it? Oh, so my I don't have New Year's resolutions, but I did have ah, um sort of ah, principle guiding principle. for the year, and it was in perfect action over perfect in action and making the video for you as part of that. So it's like you. I'm going to be a rewatching day one more than once. Um, I think I'm fortunate I don't have a lot of self doubt. Not that it's not there, but I've been walking around thinking that I knew who I waas. I went through a really hard struggle when I was in 19 years old. What do I major in in college? Who am I? I'm nothing if I don't know who I am. And when I discovered that I was a photographer, I I'm a photographer, and I walked around for the last eight years, thinking I knew who I waas and wondering why it's not working for me. Um, within the 1st 5 minutes of today, you know, I realized that I've had the style that I've had for the last eight years, and I didn't even know how to define it. I'll just be real watching day one until I figure it up. You know, when people say, What do you do for a living? I don't say any more my photographer. I say that I changed women's lives. I help women break the lives that they told themselves. I heal women. That's what I do for a living. I just take off some pictures of it while I'm at it. I just take the memories of it while I'm doing all of this. That's what I That's what I want to be when I grow up. Like when I said I went home to my says I want to be a boudoir photographer when I grow up. I changed my mind. I want to be. I want to be an advocate for women. I want to help women and I also want it memory. You know, I did everything, in my words but little voice, but I want to keep the memory of that experience for them. So that's why, for me, it's not about the images. It's about the experience, the images of often off some souvenir of the experience that they went through. But photographer is not my number one title on my business card anymore. That's only been changed for me in the past six months or so. Um, I I think I've always known that I've been more than a photographer, but I thought I had already to find myself and and that's why everything hasn't been working for me. So it this is really huge for me to know that I need to go back to the drawing board and that that's that's perfectly fine, I guess maybe, maybe as a natural lifecycle, maybe you need to redefine yourself. I think I've heard every seven years. Um, so maybe it's just that time for me. Yeah, Awesome. Thank you guys for sharing that. Is there anything any hurdles they want to talk about in Internet land? Annamarie Keenan says. Jen, I I want to thank you because my biggest hurdles, lack of information along with self doubt and watching this has helped her gained the confidence. Thank you, you're and another hurdle, Penny Lee asked. How do we shoot on? I shoot on the road? How do I sell the clients when we're in different states when the image is already sure we actually have this conversation during the break? I will images online for that purpose, but I put them on with a deadline. So in other words, the gallery will only be active, let's say for a week or two weeks after that the gallery disappears, so I let them know that they need to be doing there ordering, or sometimes what I'll do is else do a Skype session with them or a phone call. Say, you know what? Let's I'll even might. I might even make that gallery active for only that period of time. When we're on the phone and we'll go through the images together, all our or I'll have them send me, listed the images and I'll go through and right back with the different suggestions I might have if their overseas, for example, Um, but I make the gallery limited, limited viewing. Talking to you. We talked about this but limited imbuing, so I'll make sure it's as well. It's only active for two weeks, and every time they go to the gallery of Pops up, just a reminder. This gallery expires in such such a day because what happens is if you leave the gallery up for them, there's really no reason for them to purchase the images. They could just see them any time they want, so I make sure I do it on a limited basis, and I tell them right up front your gallery is going to be active for two weeks. After that, it expires. And to reinstate your gallery, it's $100 if you order something after a court $1000. will go towards the purchase. But otherwise it's $ usually they find it in their heart to order something within the 1st 2 weeks. All right, so another hurdle is from Keith, who says, My heart on general is finding people willing to invest in portrait as artwork and not something just to put on an IPhone. People are not willing to pay for good work or people have extra money or people who have the extra money available to spend the money. What are your tips on getting started in the boudoir business so essentially, like, I can't find people to pay. Okay, well, one of the things he mentioned there and I might be misreading, but he mentioned or is edible as the guy that guy he or she would keep. Okay, so he mentioned more than something to put in an IPhone. But if for some reason he's attracting a client that wants to put it on an IPhone. There's one of two things you could dio. You can either find a new client or make it expensive enough to happen by the digital images to put on their IPhone. So that's why I sell both now albums and digital images because a lot of my clients were saying to me, Listen, albums are awesome, but my husband is working in, you know, Afghanistan and I need to send him digital images. So I listened to what they were saying, and I made a change, and it's just is expensive to buy the digitals as it is to buy the album. So again, I don't care what when they're buying, I make the same money either way. So it sounds to me I know he's asked me like, How do you begin? And how did you find women to do it? But it sounds to me like they just want something different than what he's offering. So he sort of has two different options there and another hurdle from Brit Santos. My biggest obstacle is turning enquiries into book sessions. What do you say when someone contacts you and says to you, I'm interested in booking you, but I want to lose £ 1st Sure. Well, I definitely reassure them that, um it doesn't really matter that we're gonna pick outfits for you, and we're gonna pose you to, you know, an inch of your life so really matter whether you lose £10 or not. But I understand that, too. Because Daphne and I were talking. She was like, I would love to shoot. And I was, like, half me. I've put on, like, £7 since this process started, and I really need to lose it. But I don't need to lose it to look better in the pictures. I need to lose it for my confidence. So maybe I would just say to them, um, you know, Well, that's fine. You know, I'm booking six months out. Why don't we do it then? But rest assured, if you don't lose the £10 it's really not gonna make a difference for me, you know? But you know, people have something to say. Oh, you don't need to lose weight. Doesn't matter. But as a woman, I'd like to acknowledge that because I often feel that, too. I mean, when I got this, I was ago. I'm gonna lose £10. Camera adds time bound. You know, that's just the way women work. Everything we do when something good happens and like the first thing you say. So I better go on a diet, you know? So to acknowledge that and sort of ease there their concerns, but not to brush it aside like, Oh, you're crazy. That because in her mind, it is true. You re really? Yeah. You're creating trust. You don't want to say to her. No. You're crazy. No. You wanna be like, Listen, I totally acknowledge that I've had clients like you before. Just so you know, we were able to leave the problem with laundry and posing. But I understand what you're saying, but I'm gonna take the pressure off of you. You don't have to worry about it. All right? We have images by Amy Jo, who says her hurdle is a conservative city and a conservative state had a lot of money. How do I get my name out there and be seen when I know many people are still offended by this style of photography? You guys gonna laugh at me. If she thinks she lives in a conservative state in a conservative city, she has no idea because you do not know what people do behind closed doors. And I guarantee if you could pop those doors open at certain hours of the night or the day or whatever, there is on awful lot of non conservatism happening. So I'm just saying, you know, I mean, people outwardly like to say I don't know, but let me check it out. Right. So my advice and people say, Oh, the people here is so conservative, I don't really care. Talk about it anyway. They might pretend like they're uncomfortable, But trust me, you're going to find people that are going to do it anyway because, I mean, come on, people were all human. Okay, if you want to pretend like you're not a sexual creature with the exception of some people, that may be or not I mean, you know, come on, sex sells. We all have sexuality, sensuality. People don't always like to embrace it publicly, but we're all from the same cloth. If she feels that way, I'm sure many people in her town do so not to get discouraged by people that say, Believe me, they're doing some funky stuff behind you. Have them own it to you. And that's really where privacy and a serious answer. That's really where privacy is something I would put on my website something really strong about. The biggest thing is I protect the privacy of my clients and, you know, I deliver products in a brown box and there is no, you know, there's no name on it. Nobody will ever know you were here. If you don't want them to know. So to make sure that privacy is really prevalent on her website. Okay, and we've got Kristen at Portland sirens, my biggest hurdles, that I will get flustered during a session, especially if a client isn't warming up to me and I panic and freeze up. What can I do to throw this hurdle out? The one Sure you can start building a relationship with the client from the very beginning, so you won't. It just is. You want your clients to be comfortable with you. You want to be comfortable with your clients, so the process of speaking to them on the phone from First Contact. Um, that's not just for your client. That's for you, too. You want to make sure that you mess with them and that you're comfortable with them. If you do get nervous that you could make a joke or you have a comment, you know that you can say that. You know you're on the same page. So yeah, getting to know your clients better preparing yourself, Find a way to prepare yourself for a session? Is it meditation before a session or positive self talk or looking through Pinterest to get supposing ideas? What do you need to do to prepare yourself before the session to give yourself the confidence that you need? Great. We have another hurdle from F. Garcia. What can I do when I'm surrounded by photographers that sell a session and a disc of images for $40 do not want to pay for better quality etcetera? They do admit that the quality is much better, but just won't spend Fabio Garcia in New Mexico. That's an easy one. They're not your clients. Who cares to think they're not your client and never tire was looking around for very long. So really don't worry about that person because I don't know. I can't run my business on $40 affection. I'll just That's worse than staying home doing nothing so I wouldn't even be bothered about. So maybe even the bigger question that a lot of people have is that fair of competition? Yeah, that's a thing. It's I don't care if that guy charges $40 or $4000. It doesn't matter. He's not your competition because somebody's either gonna go to that guy or go to you. Hopefully, based on the message that you put out in the client that you're trying to attract, and since everybody's an individual, you're looking for different people. They're looking for you. You're gonna connect. So really, there is no competition, but they're certainly not competition with somebody's charging $40 a session, because, I mean, that's just ridiculous. Whoever out there charging 40 $50 a session, $100 a session, please just stop doing that. I'm not saying that for my good. I don't care for your good. Don't do that anymore. It's not good for the industry. It's not good for you. You're not going to be in business very long that way. You know, take some pride in your time and your talent. Even if you're just starting your still talented, you're still your time is still worth something. You're still a human being, but just stop under charging. I understand maybe wanting to start a little lower if you're new. But then, like I said, bump your prices up every few sessions. The more talented you get, the more experience you have, the more money you're worth. Period, months went a question. So much is also, like, just a response, because I have run into, you know, I have had a client email me and then write back and say, Oh, well, you know, I've been doing some cruising online and I found this for $10 my response, and it's not defensive in any way, But it's almost like a clarification with, you know, said Client, You know, that's great, if that's what you want, a book, be my guest. But I offer a beautiful quality product, and I, you know, and then I explain the experience and how it's going to make them feel so you know, like your price fairly and your price wisely for what you shoot and you put your value on yourself. So you just need to maintain that you are worth something. And what you charge is perfect for what you offer. And Joe blow charging 40 bucks. He's right. You're right. He won't be around long because guess what? His quality is garbage. And you know, if your client wants to go and have a Kaka boudoir session where she leaves feeling like, you know, trashy and and not beautiful and not good about herself, then that's her. That's her baggage to bear. But you know, you just need to explain. You're gonna make her feel like she is queen of the World and that she is as beautiful as she truly is. So that would be my response to Definitely, definitely. But sometimes I want you to be careful about. I think it's great and you 100% right. But sometimes I just want you to be careful about explaining or defending yourself too much because it starts getting like You shouldn't have to define yourself. You know, you shouldn't have to defend yourself. The thing is, when a client is to me, well, I saw a group on $400 I'll say, Well, I don't offer $100 experience. If you want $100 experience, that's great. I suggest to book the group on my experiences. I can't offer that type of experience $400. So it's really up to you. And if she's, my client should come back to me. And if she's not, she won't. But I don't want to convince her to come to me. I want her toe. Want to come to me? You know, all right, I'm really excited because Cathy J. Here just leaned over and said, I'm raising my prices. She's not even a photographer. A small business owner in another area and seriously like this is take yourself seriously and value yourself in your work. When you're in the service based business, it's so hard to figure out what your price is because your service, even though it might be the same as another photographer, is different than their service. And it's, you know, it's like it's hard to price a service based business, but no value your service. Sometimes I think, in this system, and I think I forgot to mention on camera when we talked a little bit last night to sometimes if you're too inexpensive, people are like, Why she's so cheap, right? Like, have you ever had that, like somebody cycle? I recommend this floor guy. He's awesome. And then I called the floor guy and he's the only be $1000 for your floor. And then I have three other guys come in and they go, Oh, it's, you know, $ for your floor and I go home. I sat $1000 guys so cheap, like, what am I not getting with his service that I'm getting? So I'm gonna go with $3000 because that was not a guy now creeps me out, right? Sometimes when you charge too little, you're actually turning away clients that will pay more people that have money see things that are expensive as worth the money. You know, I remember somebody said to me once when I was charging like, $1000 a session, and she said to me, Why don't you have, like, a 35 $100 session? And I was like a lot of money? Well, nobody's gonna spend it if you don't offer it, so don't say you want to make $1000 a session When your session is $500 that doesn't dive, you know? So, yeah, be careful about charging too little everybody out there, no matter what you dio because that's creepy, Really. Especially when you're like, I'm gonna take off my clothes and be in a place with somebody I don't know for 300 bucks. I mean, that sounds a little bit creepy. I don't know it just for me. I think, you know, for somebody, their charges, $1000 or $ That's like fine dining. You know, that's like, what an experience I'm gonna have. I trust somebody that charges that much money. They must be legit, especially if you're a guy, by the way, because if you're a guy and you're charging like $250 people are probably thinking he just wants to see me in my underwear like that's not enough money to do all that work, you know? So if you're a guy, yeah, definitely. Make sure you're charging a legit number. So I've seen a couple of people express hurdles of I live in a small town. Yeah, I love that one too. I live in a small town to New York City. No, um, people say all the time. If I only lived in New York if I only lived in New York Well, let me tell you about in New York, New York is over, saturated to the point of I'm pretty sure my daughter starting a boudoir business next week. I mean, everybody's a boudoir photographer, if not some sort of photographer. Um, New Yorkers are notoriously cheap when it comes to photography, and I think it's because we're so oversaturated that, um, they're just used to low prices. I don't I'm not the most expensive photographer in the entire world, but I'm pretty expensive for New York. And I know that sounds pretty shocking because you think, Oh, New Yorkers have money, but that's not really always true. So when you live in a small town, sometimes I think that that's even better because you could really find the person that you're looking for. We're for me. It's like there's so many people and it's so oversaturated. There's people like Aaliyah you how many people are shooting boudoir in your town? Very few. I just don't know for sure. Okay, but like, give me an idea. Literally saying Sorry. Maybe people aren't saying okay, He just aren't actively because it's such a small how maybe people aren't, um, actively soliciting, like marketing right now, but a so far as I know, not very many, like maybe just me, right o k c have a pill for that. You know, I could totally kill in a small town, being the only photographer there. I mean, you should just be charging pretty much whatever you want, but, you know, I would kill for that instead. I mean, there's probably literally five food war photographers. And like just where my studio is in that small little area, it's probably 5 to 10. Worked hard, was just in that area that I know off. Let me think. 1234 There's at least five that I know of, if not more, in just that little area, right, Like maybe like a 10 block radius. So to live in a small town is awesome because you don't have that same saturation of photographers on like alleys in an amazing position. I think a better position that I'm in. In New York City, where there's eight million people, you're in a better situation in a small town, being the only one doing what you dio. So that's just an excuse, I think to say I live in a small town. So what? Go to other towns around you? You know, my clients come from all over. My clients come from out of state. My clients come from Massachusetts. I've had clients from Florida that clients from Ohio I've had clients come from overseas. I think I got three request yesterday. One was a girl from Sweden coming to New York. And I want experience in New York Photographer. So just because you live in a small town doesn't mean that you can't make something happened. I think that Justin excuse We like excuses. Don't way giving yourself on excuses like easy, but I like what I just can't. So now you don't have to. You take the pressure off yourself, right? You know, and unfortunately, all the people that I look at in life that have succeeded never let excuses stop them. I look at somebody like Steve Jobs. Bill Gates. You know, Mayor Bloomberg in New York City. Anybody that's it's rich and famous and has success in their life or even rich, and it's successful and not famous for whatever you're looking for. They've never let excuses that them, you know, Steve Jobs started in his garage. So everybody out there that has nowhere to shoot starts shooting in a crash. If you did it, you could do it too, you know, I mean, I just think it's such a shame when you have talent that's untapped. You know, you shouldn't let it go. And I'm gonna go to my last live for that one, actually. So we started who started the day one with this slide. Inspiration, motivation and perspiration. And I hope that these words become a little more parent for you. I hope you feel inspired to make changes inspired by the posing in the creativity. I hope it mixes some things up for you, but I also hope it motivates you, and it sounds like it does to go home and actually take the action and put the perspiration into what you want to dio and not go home and say, Well, I really wanted to make changes just seems too overwhelming. I don't know where to begin. Don't fall back into the same rut that you've been in with these hurdles. Get the hurdles out of your way. You have the toolbox. Now, there's no more excuses for that. I really want to thank you guys for being intimate with us as we fearlessly explored feminine photography. And I hope I mean, I'm not rapping. I don't know what it what, we're out here. But I just really want to thank you guys because you guys were fearless. We are intimate now. And of course, this is about femininity, and I just I really appreciate it, and I hope, And I wish you guys a 1,000,000 successes 10 times over, And I hope he shared with me as it goes on on, you know, same for everybody out there. You know that wants to build a business, Any type of business, boudoir, Children, weddings. I don't really care what it is, but you have the tools. Now you know a lot of what we discussed it. I applies to any area of photography and life. You know what I intended? Every single, you know, with what's up next. So what's up next is really up to you. Your turn to come up with a presentation, tell me what you've done, but all the tools that you've gotten.