I hear people say that they don't have time to grow their photography business because they work a full time job.
Instead of waiting until you have the time you think you need to switch careers, I want to challenge your perspective.
I want to help you see that by using the current job you have, you could actually get where you want faster.
I believe it will take less time than you're probably already putting into your hobby.
If you are a stay-at-home parent or you don't have a day job right now, I think you'll also be served by listening as well because these ideas can change your life too.
When do we have time and money just sitting there waiting for us to use them? The funny thing is you never will have an abundance of either until you decide to.
I have a student, Darren, that was working full-time in a soul sucking IT job.
At the end of the day or on weekends, he would do what he loved, which was photography sessions.
He told himself that photography can't be a career, it is just a fun hobby.
He didn’t think he could charge what he needed to charge so that he could support his family.
Somewhere, he came across a training that we put out into the market so that photographers could see that there's actually another way.
What I love about Darren's story is money wasn't what was holding him back.
His issue was thinking he didn’t have the time to do his full-time job and learn how to make money in his photography business because it's really just a hobby.
But he was so unhappy with his day job, so he took money from his day job and invested in my two month coaching program.
Sure, he was worried that he couldn't keep up, but like many, he found that knowing he was learning something that could fuel his passion, that it would help him get through his day job without doing something crazy like quitting the day job before knowing how to make money in his dream job.
That's what's so cool for you guys who are working full time, especially if you're not happy with your career.
If you love your career outside of being a photographer, you might just want to have photography as a hobby, which is cool.
But if you don't love what you're doing every day and doubt that you could be a full-time photographer where people actually pay you good money, you might actually learn what Darren learned.
Within a year he quit his full-time job and replaced it with his photography income.
In the short term, he had to work a little harder and get his priorities straight.
I have some really great tips for you today.
I want you to consider getting a part-time job in the short term to fund the dream.
There is no risk if you have a job because you have a plan to pay for it.
The reason I created this today was for those of you who are working full time and you're telling yourselves that you don’t have the time for photography.
If you have the money that's coming in every month from another source, you can invest in learning how to run a business in very few hours a week.
I'm going to give you five really great steps to transition so you can let your day job fund your dream job.
If you don't have a full-time job or even a part-time job, these tips are going to help you as well.
Having your own business is a luxury because you have the ability to make money and put your family first.
If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.
All you have to do is decide that you want it to be your time.
1. Make a list of every single thing you’re spending your time on.
If you're saying you don't have time and you're overwhelmed, I promise you, you do have time.
It's about priorities.
Start by looking at your phone and looking at the average usage time you are spending on there.
Look at how much time you're spending on your TV or running around doing mindless shopping.
And if you're at a loss, you can do this over a week where you track what you're doing all day long in 15 minute increments.
So throughout the day, you're looking at, what did you do in the last hour?
And if you do that throughout the day, you'll find out what you're doing that's wasting your time and that's not productive.
2. Create a vision board
A vision board is a visual representation of what you want your life to look like.
If you don't have a map of where you want to go, how are you going to make a plan to get there, let alone ever get there?
If you're just doing photography for fun and think if it takes off then you’ll go for it, it doesn’t happen like that.
In my programs, we do a lot of talking about our vision, our future and what we're building.
Put it on your vision board that you want to put your family first, that you want to make money, that you want to build a life that has meaning and impact full of abundance.
3. Communicate your long-term vision to your inner circle
If they don't know that you truly want to do the hard work it takes to be a successful photography business owner, they're going to see what you do as a cute little hobby.
I want you to tell them you're serious.
You tell your family the what, not the how.
You don't tell them you're going to do it by raising prices and taking away digital files because they'll freak out, and they'll try to tell you that no one will pay you more than what you're already charging.
You just smile and say, "Well, actually, we're not going to talk about that part of it. I just want you to know that I've got a mentor in a community that I'm going to invest in," if that's indeed what you want to do.
4. Make a checklist of what you need to do to make your dreams happen, including how to pay for it
Make a list of all the things you need to do to crush being able to invest in your business.
Ask yourself, what's standing in my way?
Maybe it's gear, you don't have a computer or own Photoshop or Lightroom and the programs you need. Maybe it's finding a way to get childcare.
Put it on the list.
Then you can figure out how to fund it, and maybe you can even trade for some of these things.
The biggest thing here is instead of saying, "I can't," I want you to ask yourself, "How can I," so make a bucket list of all the things you want to accomplish to help you accomplish your dreams.
5. Look at your financial wellness
If you're living in scarcity, it's really hard to start growing a business because you're afraid all the time about money.
You're likely living at your debt threshold or have a low credit score.
You likely aren't good with money and the thought of it freaks you out.
All of these things contribute to your financial health, and if you struggle in this area, it tells me that you don't have the skills that you're needing to run a business right now.
But the good news is that these skills can be learned so quickly.
You likely just haven't had the right voice in your life telling you how it can work.
You can do things like literally reach out to the company that gives the credit scores, and you can ask them, "How can I get my credit score up?"
And they'll help you.
There is good debt and there is bad debt, and you've got to get okay with good debt for running your business and bad debt is things you don't need in your life.
The cool thing is we teach some of these things in our programs so the people can learn how to be better with money.
That's part of running a profitable business.
What if this could work for you?
I believe in you, my friend, because I believe in my system and I've seen what it can do for people.
People like Darren who work full-time, other people who don't have the resources, but have the resourcefulness to go find a way.
You can do this.
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