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Great Plans Still Fail

Lesson 9 from: How to Start a Photography Business

Pye Jirsa

Great Plans Still Fail

Lesson 9 from: How to Start a Photography Business

Pye Jirsa

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Lesson Info

9. Great Plans Still Fail

Strategies won't protect you from failing, but those failures can still take you somewhere. And you're not alone -- in this lesson, Pye shares some of his past failures.
Summary (Generated from Transcript)

The topic of this lesson is the importance of strategy and planning in starting a photography business, even though great plans often fail. The instructor shares personal examples of failed business ventures and emphasizes that failures can lead to growth and success in the long run.

Q&A:

  1. Why do we need a strategy and a plan?

    We need a strategy and a plan because even great plans can fail, and having a plan helps guide our actions and decisions.

  2. What are some examples of the instructor's failed businesses?

    Some examples of the instructor's failed businesses include Jivejive, Meebi tag, Indieworks Corps, Echozen, Frooshie, and Undfind.

  3. What happened to the web startup that the instructor quit Ernst and Young for?

    The web startup had funding close to a million dollars, but it got pulled right when the recession started, leaving the team with no funding and a failed business.

  4. What is the instructor's perspective on failures?

    The instructor sees failures as opportunities for growth and learning. Each failure leads to the next thing being done better.

  5. How many of the instructor's businesses have failed or exited?

    23 out of 25 of the instructor's businesses have either failed or exited.

  6. How often does the instructor start a new project?

    On average, the instructor starts a new project every other year.

  7. Is it okay to put a pause on a project and focus on something else?

    Yes, it is okay to start something and put a pause on it if you're not ready yet or need to focus on something else.

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Class Introduction

13:12
2

Common Myths & Unknown Truths

11:42
3

The Road Ahead

13:03
4

Find Your Passion

06:06
5

The Lin & Jirsa Journey

13:54
6

Part-time, Full-time, Employed, Partners?

03:51
7

Stop Wasting Time & Money

06:07
8

Your 12 Week Roadmap

04:33
9

Great Plans Still Fail

06:01
10

Strategy Vs. Planning

04:16
11

Mind Mapping

07:25
12

Select a Focus

14:16
13

Competitor Research

09:34
14

S.W.O.T. Analysis

13:54
15

Strategy & Long Term Goals

03:50
16

Values, Vision & Mission

27:49
17

Effectively Managing Your Time

15:05
18

Artistic Development

07:30
19

Create Your Plan

13:12
20

What's Your Product

10:51
21

Luxury vs Consumer Products & Experiences

11:44
22

Quick Break for Econ 101

16:31
23

Your Target Market & Brand Message

21:25
24

What's in a Name

09:20
25

Your Client 'Why'

05:43
26

Crafting the Why Experience

24:17
27

Document the Client Experience

08:29
28

Business Administration Basics

27:03
29

Book Keeping Management

06:51
30

Create the Logo & Branding

07:04
31

Portfolio Design

15:11
32

Design Your Services & Packages

18:51
33

Pricing Fears & Myths

08:46
34

Three Pricing Methods

25:39
35

Package Pricing Psychology & Design

06:15
36

Psychology of Numbers

07:29
37

Pricing Q&A

23:51
38

Grass Roots Marketing

09:36
39

The Empty Party

07:03
40

Friends & Family Test Shoots

16:28
41

Join Groups

04:32
42

Second Shooting Etiquette

07:44
43

The Listing & Classified Hustle

14:10
44

Make Instagram Simple

13:55
45

Your Automated Pinterest Plan

08:01
46

Facebook Because You Must

07:37
47

Giveaway & Styled Shoots

12:17
48

Content Marketing & SEO

08:12
49

The Monster: SEO

07:26
50

Selecting Your Keywords

05:45
51

Testing Your Keywords

07:53
52

Grouping Main & Niche Goals

12:39
53

Your Content Road Map

11:47
54

Content Marketing Q&A

10:45
55

Inspiration to Keep Working

07:45
56

How to Craft Your Content

15:03
57

Internal Linking Basics

05:30
58

Back Link Building Basics

04:55
59

Link Value Factos

14:38
60

Measuring Link Value

04:24
61

Link Building Strategy & Plan

06:10
62

Link Building Plan: Vendors & Guest Writing

06:45
63

Link Building Plan: Features, Directories, Comments

03:11
64

Link Building: Shortcuts & One Simple Tool

14:44
65

What is Sales? Show Me!

12:58
66

Your First Massive Failure

05:17
67

The Sales Process

07:31
68

Your Second Massive Failure

05:23
69

Understand Buyer Psychology

10:00
70

Step 0: Building Rapport & Trust

15:14
71

Step 1: Identify Need or Want

15:39
72

Cognitive Dissonance

12:01
73

Steps 2 & 3: Value Proposition & The Solution

14:21
74

Step 4 : Close, Make the Ask

04:32
75

Step 5: Follow Up & Resolve Concerns

06:13
76

Family Photography Hot Seat

12:06
77

Business Example Hot Seat

15:52
78

Boudoir Photography Hot Seat

16:09
79

The Best Sales Person

07:45
80

Your Mindset, Vibrations & Frequency

06:56
81

Always Positive, Always Affirming

11:55
82

The Second Money & Dual Process

07:39
83

Chumming the Price Waters

03:57
84

Creating Want or Scarcity

09:54
85

Timeless Advice on Being Likable

11:53
86

Selling Over The Phone

10:59
87

Forbidden Words in Sales

11:40

Lesson Info

Great Plans Still Fail

Great let's get started with strategy and planning. Now we are in this section of our roadmap before we can actually know what to do, what competitiveness and analyze. All that stuff we needed to find our focus, and I wanna talk about that for just a little bit. So why do we need a strategy and a plan? Because great plans, they still fail, constantly. And I've by the way selected images that kind of correspond to the topic that we're learning. This is a family shoot and maternity session where well like every single one of them your plan fails, and the kids go off playing with their little toys and doing their thing. But there's kind of a beauty in these imperfect moments, right? There's a beauty in the fact that great plans still fail as well because it leads you somewhere, and each of those failures take you somewhere. Don't feel like that's a bad thing. I'm gonna show you. Jivejive, this was actually what we quit Ernst and Young for. This was a web startup that we had funding for, c...

lose to a million dollars, and it got pulled right when the recession started. So we quit Ernst and Young, three weeks later we had our team ready and in place, funding was gone, investors said they didn't wanna do it any more, and we were just left kind of holding our website in our hands, and like what do we do now? Okay, and the recession was starting if you guys remember that time. So that failed. Haha we have more. Meebi tag, Indieworks Corps, Echozen, there's a lot of comedy in this, Frooshi, Undfind, so we ended up, you know you own like some of these registered names. So IW actually became our parent holding company for all of our... Cause we had it already, it was a failed business, we had all the legal work done. Same thing with Undfined. We started as a creative studio for web design, and then when that... We were like we're not gonna do that anymore. Then we're like let's make bags for photography. So that became Undfined. So like all these things just... We reused the names. It's fine. Meebi tag was actually a great idea. This was a way to actually tag products within YouTube videos when YouTube was just coming up. Another idea that was on the verge of funding that we lost. These are all failures. Frooshie was probably my favorite failure because it tasted the best. It was really good. So we invented Frooshie. I kid you not nobody else had this. This was back in college. This was like our very first startup. We got $100,000 from the city. We developed Frooshie. I was in charge of all the beautiful design assets you see and the logos and that kind of stuff, and eventually the company tanked. They hired the wrong person to manage it, and it went down. But again one of my startups that failed, and Frooshie was really delicious. Have you guys ever fruit sushi? It sounds terrible, but it's really good. We had this problem in every market. (audience laughing) Fruit sushi sounds terrible, but it's really good. It was. It was like this coconut milk rice and you roll fruits inside of it and it had like a sugary strawberry drizzle on it. It was really delicious. There was no seaweed or fish involved, which was problematic because it was fruit sushi and people expected that. Who'd a thunk? You know? We had taste test ratings that put it up there with ice cream. Just saying. That's a big deal. Undfined, this was our... We had photography bags we made for quite a while. It was actually a profitable venture. We still cut it, because it just wasn't comparable to all of our other stuff. My point is if you look on our server this is underscore zero zero killed projects. Boom, these are all the things that we have started and at one point either failed or stopped. The best of all of them was our boy band. (speaker laughing) I kid you not. (audience laughing) You think it's funny, we actually had a contract in Taiwan as a boy band. The only problem was when we got the deal, we got a record deal, when we got the deal it was expense only for the first year, and this is Eric, Eric was graduating from dental school, we're all CPAs, and we're like I think we're about 10 years past this boy band startup phase. Maybe we should move on. But I love this picture because I'm like the only brown man in a sea of Chinese, Asian, Taiwanese boys. These are all brothers, and I'm like in the background. like hiding with my hat, don't look at me. We knew our market. Our market was Taiwan. That's what we're aiming for. We got it, but we eventually left it. Our music is still online, hint hint, just in case anybody... (audience laughing) Our track record. Would you bet on these odds? 23 of 25 of our businesses we've either failed or exited. I'm hoping that helps to relieve you a little bit, because that everyone of those failures led to us doing the next thing better. So it's gonna be this process that you're gonna through. Two of the 25 were successful. Well successful enough that we kept. That's Lin and Jirsa and that's SLR Lounge. On average, we currently start a new project every other year. So that's kind of like our pace of starting things, and now it's Line and Roots. And it's okay to start something and put a pause on it. Say I'm going to start this, you know what I'm not quit ready yet, and let's go back and focus on this thing and put a pause on it. That's totally fine too. If the majority of great plans fail though, are you willing to have no plan, because every one of the things that you just saw had full business plans. Meebi tag had a 20 page write-up documenting out the exact plan of what it was, how much funding we needed, who were gonna be the developers, everything. Every one of those had plans.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

How to Launch a Photography Business Workbook
Experience Pricing Example

Ratings and Reviews

Armstrong Su
 

This class and materials are to the point and eye-opening on the business side of photography. Pye Jirsa is an amazing and fun teacher as well! Most photographers need more business classes offered to bring us who love to create art back to reality for a more successful business that makes a living on it's own. This course will definately get you started in the right direction and so cheap too! Great investment! armstrong outdoor tv case outdoortvcase Pye Jirsa is one of the best instructors that I have the pleasure to learn from. He and his team have given me so much more than they'll ever realize. Knowledge, wisdom, training, friendship, mentoring, inspiration, joy... I cannot thank Pye enough for changing my life for the better. I owe them more than they'll ever realize. Thank you, Pye Jirsa!!!

Angela Sanchez
 

This class has been an eye opener for me; a point of change in my vision as photographer. Pye is and AMAZING, INSPIRING, GENEROUS instructor, with an, authentic desire to help people and to share with them the best of his knowledge. I will not have enough words to say thanks to Pye Jirsa, as a teacher and as a human being, and thanks to Creative Live who allows us to benefit from the experience of such a knowledgeable, educated, well-versed photographer and instructor. 1000% recommended!

Yenith LianTy
 

Been following this guy forever. Pye Jirsa may be well known in the wedding & portrait photography world and if there is something that this guy knows it is how to create a business, a sustainable one. The workbook he provided is comprehensive, and I honestly wish I had this when I first started out as a photographer! I love that he talks about his failures, keeping it real and honest for anyone starting out. He is definitely one of the best instructors around, super humble, down to earth and with a sense of humor to boot. The course is worth it! THE WORKBOOK is AMAZING! SUPER DETAILED!

Student Work

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