Wouldn’t it be so great if you could find this absolutely perfect plan for you, and your photography business that would just help you achieve success in every area, including your motherhood? Do you just wish there was a special formula you could follow?

I get it. But I hate to break it to you; this perfect plan… it just doesn’t exist. You have to create it.

And you might think that’s strange coming from a business coach. You were probably waiting for me to drop my new program name, and say it was the magic formula you’ve been searching for.

But I’m here to give you the framework that you need to find success in both motherhood and business.

So if you’re ready for this, let’s get right to it.

Hey there, Mama. Welcome back to The Purpose Gathering Podcast. I am so excited to be here with you today.

It has been a busy few weeks. If you have been following closely along with my journey over the past few months, you are probably in the middle of participating in The Focused Mom Photographer Summit. I have been working on this summit for six months. And it is finally here. And I am just so incredibly excited for it.

I hope that you have been enjoying it, and I hope that you have been getting so much value out of it. And if you haven’t heard what I’m talking about, don’t worry, I’ll link it down below. And you can still check it out. There are presentations today and tomorrow. So you haven’t missed out on the entire thing.

But I am so excited to really give you just this overview, and this framework of what it looks like to create a success plan as a mom photographer.

Now, if you have been a part of the summit, you know what I’m about to share, because this is the framework for success. As a mom photographer, when you do these things I’m about to share with you, this is where you find success.

So I’m going to give you a brief overview. And then I’m going to give you an invitation to a challenge that I am hosting next week that I hope you’ll take advantage of.

This is the perfect opportunity to dip your toes in if you have wondered what it would be like to work with me as your coach, and have the accountability and the support that you need to create this perfect plan for you and your specific season of life and your specific business.

So the first step that you really need to do is:

1. Owning Your Role As the CEO

And you’re probably going to get sick of me saying this over and over again.

But what I hope that it’s doing is creating new connections in your brain, this pathway that is starting to get stronger, because the more you hear something and the more familiar you become with something, the more it starts to become a part of who you are.

And this is really key to finding that balance and that success in both areas. And so really making sure that you are taking the leader role seriously in your business, and that you’re focusing on the future.

Next, I want you to really be thinking about are you set up and operating your business legally?

That’s a huge step. And I think a lot of people just think it’s kind of a one-and-done thing. They think like ‘oh, well I set everything up. Now I’m perfectly legal.’ but like, are you operating your business legally? And what does that look like? And also, do you know your business finances? Are you tracking your income and your expenses? Do you know your profitability?

These are all the kinds of things that a CEO knows about their business.

And finally, sustainability. Do you know how to run a sustainable business where you are not exhausted and overwhelmed and staying up late every night and working in the pockets of time and just never feeling like you are in control?

This is what the CEO of your company should be doing. This is what you as the leader of your company should be paying attention to.

2. Streamline Your Processes

This comes back to that sustainability piece.

If you want to be a sustainable business that stays in business for a long time, you need to streamline your processes.

This helps you not only increase profitability but decrease overwhelm, and so things like Do you have a solid inquiry and booking process? What is your shooting process look like? Your shooting process should definitely affect your editing process. The better that you get at it, at things like your photography skills and shooting the session, the easier your editing should be.

And then what is your process for editing look like? How long is it taking you to edit? Have you tracked that before? Is that something that you’re actively working on streamlining, then we can talk about content creation and blogging, and client experience.

I mean, when it comes to streamlining your processes, there are a lot of different areas that are really key and important to your photography business. And I want you to check in on those and assess each and every one of those processes.

3. Skyrocket Your Marketing

Without clients, we don’t have photography businesses.

And so it’s really important that we are focusing our area or focusing our attention in the right areas when it comes to marketing. So things like social media, email, marketing, Pinterest, what is your brand position? What makes you different? And how can you stand out? This is really important when it comes to marketing.

Now, if you’ve been around here for a while, you know that my favorite way to market is through relationship marketing, and really getting to know not only vendors, and complementary vendors, but other people who service your ideal clients.

Getting to know your ideal clients and really creating and cultivating deep relationships with network events in your surrounding areas are so key and essential to being successful as a mom photographer.

4. Increasing Your Profitability

This is huge.

I asked over on my Facebook page, what is one piece of advice that you would give to a new mom photographer, and one of the members of our community said to price yourself profitably.

She said every minute you spend on your business is time away from your family. And you deserve to be compensated for that. And of course, the only way to know that your price profitably is to accurately track your time and expenses.

She said she learned that from the best- she learned that for me, she’s so sweet. But I am telling you that if you don’t focus on all of these areas in your business, and especially increasing your profitability, you’re either not going to be in business for very long, or you’re just not going to be making the money that you want to be able to support and help your family.

Another couple of things that really help increase your profitability is booking more premium clients. Really getting out of those freebie seekers and the people who just want the cheapest price photographer.

I mean, we have all seen it in the Facebook groups, those who are looking for a photographer that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, and it’s like we do not want those clients, right? How can we get outside of those, you know, discount seekers that just want the cheapest product out there and want the cheapest service, and start booking those more premium plant clients? How can we shift our money mindset and understand that sometimes we are not our ideal client, right?

Just because we wouldn’t necessarily pay $500 an hour for a photography session doesn’t mean that other people don’t value photography that much and would pay us that much.

So there is a lot of mindset that goes into really increasing your profitability and becoming successful as a photographer.

And then something that is really important too, that I think a lot of photographers overlook is effective copy that sells.

Your website is your first impression when someone comes to your website, and you want to be able to effectively be able to tell them what it is that you do, who you serve, how you’re different, and what experience they can expect working with you.

You want your website to do that for you. And that can help increase your profitability.

Remember, the less time that you spend working and the more clients that you’re booking automatically increases your profitability. And so there’s a number of ways that you can do this.

Now, if you’re thinking like Ash, that sounds great, like how do I get all of that information? Literally all of that information is covered at The Focused Mom Photographer Summit.

Like we have been talking about that all week and we will continue to talk about it the rest of today and tomorrow.

But if this is the first time that you’re hearing about the Summit, or maybe you missed some of the presentations on Monday and Tuesday, no worries, we got you.

There is an upgrade experience for the Summit called The Focused Photographer Toolkit. This gives you ongoing access to all 20 of the presentations, including over $1,500 worth of speaker bonuses.

So these are things like full course guides, discount codes, and templates that are going to help you organize and simplify your business even further. You also get access to a 20-page workbook, audio versions of all the presentations, the live q&a replays with the speakers, and the replay for the speaker panel, which we had yesterday, all about finding balance as a mom and a photographer.

Grab The Toolkit here!

So you might be thinking, okay, Ash, like, you gave me 4 keys to really finding success as a mom photographer, but like, I feel like you left out the most important one.

And you’re right, I did.

I feel like the most important key that sort of encompasses all 4 of these is…

5. Really Learning How to Manage Your Time Well

I think that is one of the hardest parts about being a mom and a photographer, is that we just constantly have so much to do.

There are so many people and things vying for our attention. It is never-ending, and it’s exhausting.

And so, in order to sort of really be diligent in these four areas, you also need to learn how to manage your time well.

And I would love to help you do that. I want to help you create this success plan this path from the summit to your new reality, right, I want the summit to continue, I want this extension of growth for you to happen.

I do not want you to leave the summit next week, and just be like, cool, that was great. I just consumed a ton of information. I’m overwhelmed. Now I’m just back to like the day-to-day grind. Like I don’t want that for you.

I want to help you bridge the gap from what you’ve just learned, to actually starting to take action on what you’ve learned, and actually starting to implement this success plan.

I think it is absolutely crucial. If you want to grow your photography, business, if you want to get out of overwhelm, if you want that sustainability that we all want. If you want that freedom that everyone as a business owner talks about.

You might be feeling like you don’t have those things, right? Like you got into business to have freedom. But now you don’t feel like you have freedom, you maybe quit your nine-to-five, and now you’re working 24/7. Or maybe you’re still working a nine-to-five, or you’re working a part-time job. And you still are filling in the photography in the cracks of time. And you’re like, I just don’t know what I’m doing. Like I need help, I need to pare down.

And that’s a huge part of what I talk about here on the podcast and in my coaching program is the fact that you can’t do everything all at once.

You have to pick something to focus on and make small incremental changes in that area until it becomes a habit, until it becomes a new strategy, until it becomes something that is just part of who you are and how you run your business.

And to help you get there, I would love to invite you to join us for the Get Focused 5-Day Challenge starting next Monday, April 24.

This challenge is designed to keep that momentum going after the summit and give you the accountability you need to create a focused plan so you can start implementing these strategies in a systematic way.

So here’s what you can expect from the challenge. Each day, I’ll be sending you an audio lesson that will help you take action in those four main areas that we just talked about:

1. Owning your role as the CEO

2. Streamlining your processes

3. Skyrocketing your marketing

4. Increasing your profitability

These audio lessons will be approximately 10 to 15 minutes.

Next, you’ll receive a daily reflection guide that goes along with what we just talked about.

And then action steps that are going to really help you and guide you into creating that focused plan that you will use moving forward. But each challenge is going to be specific to your needs.

These lessons are not new information. That is the last thing you need right now is more new information. They’re meant to inspire you. They’re meant to encourage you to take action in those specific areas and decide what you need to focus on.

And my favorite part of this challenge is that you’re going to get 5 days of Voxer support with me in a group chat with all these other mamas who are interested in getting focused right away. They are ready to get off the sidelines. They don’t want to keep consuming information and not taking action.

And so this app called Voxer. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s amazing. My favorite. It’s a voice messaging app. It’s totally free. And it’s perfect for us busy mamas.

So inside of this Voxer support group, you’ll be able to ask questions, you can text questions, or you can leave audio messages. You can also share feedback from the lesson, post photos of your reflection guide, ask questions of the other mom photographers that are in there, and get my eyes on your business for five days.

This Voxer support is something I have never done before, but I think that it’s going to be absolutely impactful and incredible, because I know that we are busy. And I personally can’t be in a Facebook group all the time, even though I want to communicate with you guys. It’s just, it’s hard. We’ve got kids running around, right?

But being able to voice message is so much easier. I cannot wait for this, I know that it is going to be so helpful for you. I can’t wait to get to know you guys even more.

And the best part about this challenge is it’s only 10 bucks.

Like I want you to have momentum. I want to send you on your way after this summit with an incredible plan, an action plan where you are actually going to put due dates on these things that you want to accomplish.

Because if you just have a running to-do list with no accountability attached to it, and no due date, it’s just going to sit there and it’s not going to get done and that is not what I want for you.

I want you taking action right away mama.

So head on here to get started on the challenge!

I cannot wait to see you guys there. It’s going to be 5 days of so much fun.

And as always Mama, I am here rooting for you. And you are not alone on this journey.

Resources:

1. Sign up for the Get Focused Challenge
2. Summit
3. Focused Photographer Toolkit