I see so many photographers giving so much time to their photography businesses, and it starts to slowly steal more from their family than they ever wanted. I’ve recently noticed photographers falling into what I call a catch-22 business. You put yourself out there at a low price hoping to get people to book you because you’re “affordable”, but you find it’s harder than you thought to even get clients at the low price. You’re working for any little bit of money you can get because you don’t have enough low-paying clients and you are desperate to take anything that you can get. If you sat down and did the math, you would make more at a job. But you don’t want the job, so you’re justifying why you’re doing this. I did it too.
A catch-22 is really a no-win situation. In a catch-22 business, you either aren’t making much money and you’re working all the time or if you do succeed and get a bunch of clients it’s because you’re charging so little, not making money and sacrificing your time with your family. The best way to get out of the catch-22 is to take action.
While you’re most definitely stealing from your family when you’re in a catch-22 business, it’s happening in other ways you aren’t even seeing. What I’m talking about here is something called the cost of inaction. The cost of inaction refers to what you’re losing by not taking the action to do the thing that you want to do. The cost of inaction can hurt you in every area of your life because there are always hidden costs with every decision you make or don’t make.
For example, if you don’t know how to prepare healthy meals for your family, and therefore you eat out every single night, the cost of inaction is your health. You’re going to have hospital bills. In your later age, you are likely to have more illnesses and doctor’s appointments, and your food will be medicine instead of the medicine being the food.
When it comes to your business, when you don’t know how to make your goal of $5,000 a month because you’re filling your time with other things, that is the amount that it’s costing you every month not to know how to make that money. If you’re not making $5,000 a month in your business, that is what the cost of inaction is costing you. Because every month that you’re not making that money in your business, bills are piling up, opportunities are passing you by, and you are paying a cost. With a profitable business, you can catch up on debt, pay things off, and do fun things that create joy and happiness.
I really want to shine a light on the resource in your life that is much more valuable than your money. It’s your time. It’s not knowing how to make $5,000 easily in a month, working very part-time. That is costing you not only lost revenue, but it’s costing you the best years of your life and your kids’ lives. If you took the time to analyze where your time is going in your life and in your business and look at how much time you’re spending on each client for the little bit you’re charging, you would realize how little you’re making. The cost of investing in yourself to learn the skills you need to succeed will always be less than what it costs you by doing nothing.
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