Your stomach drops.
The lump in your throat appears out of nowhere along with the tears.
Another photographer in your space just got a $5,000 order.
As much as you want to celebrate with them, the volume of your headtrash is up to level 10.
You think, “How come I’m not getting orders like that yet?
- Is it my prices?
- My marketing?
- My photography?
- “Maybe I should throw in the towel and go sell essential oils.”
Comparing yourself to other photographers is easy. We’ve all gone down the spiral of comparison before.
I’m going to show you how to use comparison to lift yourself up instead of pulling you down.
I’ve spoken to several photographers lately who have told me they’re feeling super discouraged.
They see so many photographers getting results and giant orders on our Instagram, in our coaching programs, and they hear me talking about success story after success story when I do web trainings.
The success stories in our community are spreading faster than termites in a wood-house.
I know exactly how you feel.
When I joined the mastermind group with my mentor, there were some mega-entrepreneurs sitting elbow to elbow with me.
When you sit in a room and hear how others are growing by millions and hitting the goals that have been yours for years, it’s only human to walk out feeling defeated and insecure.
In these situations where you are comparing yourself to other photographers, you have to tell yourself,
“They’re doing it. If they’re doing it, I can figure it out and do it myself.”
Comparing Yourself To Other Photographers is the Thief of Joy
You might be thinking, “Why is everyone else succeeding and I’m not?”
One of our past presidents, Teddy Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”
It’s so easy to say, but so hard to act on.
We learn in junior high that we have to compare ourselves to others.
- We compare our GPAs
- Who’s smarter
- Who’s prettier
- Who has the cutest boyfriend
- Whose parents are wealthiest
Comparing yourself to others, especially photographers, does more harm than good.
As photographers, we need to figure out how to deal with comparisons because it can paralyze us.
When we’re entrepreneurs, comparisons don’t serve us.
Instead of saying, “I can’t do it. Or, but they make it look so easy,” shift your thinking.
I have a tool that can help you, called the ‘Roger That’ tool. F
or years, people said a man couldn’t run a mile in less than four minutes. In 1954, Roger Bannister did it. He ran a four-minute mile.
46 days later, a second person did it.
One year later, three men in the same race ran a mile in under 4 minutes.
Do you know why they were able to do it?
They realized, “Someone else is learning to do it and succeeding. That means it is possible.”
That is why it’s so important to learn with people who are ahead of you.
If they can do it, you can do it too.
Use Other Photographer’s Success To Visualize Your Own
I believe that to be successful in business, you have to be in a community where people are ahead of you.
You have to see people who are succeeding ahead of you in a bigger way. If you don’t, you wont be able to to visualize your success.
This is why at our event, Go Boutique Live, we celebrated the accomplishments of so many students.
They came up on stage and got their “Julie” Lanyard which recognizes them for getting their first thousand dollar client. Then they got pins as they hit different landmarks.
We even had a bunch of students who got the 100K Yay Award, a gorgeous trophy that we had made for photographers who hit 6 figures in their photography business in a year.
I wanted all the photographers who were sitting there and watching, to look up and go,
“Oh my gosh. If they can do it, I can do it too.”
I want you to be inspired by that.
I don’t want you to start comparing yourself to the photographers who made these goals.
Think if you went to a Weight Watchers meeting, and nobody there had lost any weight.
Think if you went to an AA meeting and nobody there had stopped drinking.
Would you believe that you could either stop drinking or lose weight?
No.
You would say, “Oh, this doesn’t work. It can’t be done.”
When you go there and you see other people’s success, you say,
“Oh my gosh. It’s possible for me.”
You’re Invited To Join A Successful Photography Community
Something cool that I have coming up, Is my Five Day, Pain-Free Pricing Challenge.
It’s totally free and will allow you to sit at the table with photographers who are ahead of you. I want you to feel what it feels like to be accepted into a community, no matter how broken or unworthy you think you are.
Hang with people who are ahead of you and spend some time with my amazing team and I.
I want you to watch others succeeding and killing it, and realize that you’re not the only one with head trash. We all have it, you just have to work through it.
You’re invited to my five day, pain-free pricing challenge that I’m putting on with my lab, White House Custom Color.
We’re inviting portrait photographers from around the world in order to bring this community together, so you can see that you don’t have to compare yourself to someone else in a negative way.
We want you to see what others are doing, and use that to improve your own business.
I want you to be lifted up with students who are succeeding.
For those of you who are still clinging to that broken shoot and burn model, where you give a CD of digital files for a couple hundred bucks, I want to prove to you that you will not survive this pandemic because the price-conscious customers are more price-conscious than ever.
I want you to not only know your worth but realize that you must sell products and services to make a profit.
Pricing doesn’t have to be hard, scary, and painful.
That’s why we called it pain-free pricing.
You can price profitably, be boutique, and grow your business, during this crazy economic time that we live in.
Learn What It’s Like To Believe In Yourself Again
This is your chance to get inspiration and coaching from me.
Usually, the only way to get time with me is to be in one of my paid coaching communities, but I want you to sample it.
I want you to feel what it feels like to finally believe in yourself again.
If you don’t have a large wall portrait, you’re not going to sell one. White House Custom Color gives us all kinds of things to give away.
Come and try to win a wall portrait. I love to reward action takers. Take action and join us at www.painfreepricing.com.
Instead of comparing yourself to other photographers and allowing that comparison to hold you down like a heavy brick, realize that you need to hang out with other successful photographers so you can do what they are doing.
Even if it’s painful.
Imagine being in a race with two others who are trying to break that four-minute mile and you actually do it.
Don’t let someone else’s success make you stop and feel worse about yours. Instead, let it motivate and challenge you.
When we see others succeeding at our goals, it’s human nature to measure ourselves against their success and think,
“Why couldn’t that be me? That was supposed to be me.”
I want you to remember our ‘Roger That’ tool.
Put that in your memory and remind yourself: the more you see others succeeding at your goals the closer you are to being able to do it too.
Put a smile on your face, cheer that other person up, and remind yourself that you are next.
Roger that.
