I know firsthand what it’s like to work with clients and customers who value what I have to offer (and those who don’t). I think it’s easy to believe that when you start a business, you’ll magically attract the right people (the ones who value your time and work) when in reality, most of the time, we spend a lot of time working with customers and clients who teach us what we don’t want. (we’ll call those hard lessons to learn). But the truth is, it’s those lessons that teach us to listen to our gut when it comes to the types of people we attract, and over time, we become great at attracting the right audience and saying no to the rest. 

But let me go back in time for a minute. To a time where I didn’t feel valued. Where I felt like I poured my heart into everything I did just to have it go unnoticed. I often sat there and wondered if pursuing a career in something that I am attached to emotionally, something I cared so much about, was the right decision. I think part of me is more vulnerable by choosing this as my job. Because to me, it’s more than a job. It’s something I created from nothing in hopes that the person I’m creating it for, is someone who values it. Pouring your heart into something you love for a long time just to feel like it’s not valued will run you into the ground eventually. 

The truth is that a lot of us spend a long time getting hung up on what we are not to justify the fact that we don’t value ourselves enough. We focus on all the things we aren’t excellent at instead of the pieces that make us great. The idea of truly valuing our time, work, vision, and dreams is always tied to something in the future. We become accustomed to it always being just out of reach because we’re not willing to seize it and hold on to it.

That leads us to the million-dollar question is; how do you get others to value what you do? 

It starts with you.

The first step in getting others to value you is to value yourself.

There are countless hours of work I put into this business. Countless nights that I would stay up all night to get my work done because it was the only time I could because it was when my little ones were sleeping. Countless hours on the road. Nights away from my family. Countless hours of trying over and over to get it right and countless of hours of failing and trying it again. Long days of work while holding my son while he’s sleeping. I have taken every day and pushed towards my goal, and I am the only one who knows how much I have had to sacrifice.

Do you know who values what I do most?

I do.

If you’re ready to start moving in the right direction and become amazing at getting things accomplished then let me explain this concept to you. It might sound simple but take the time to actually think about it. Let it sink in. I believe this concept needs to be understood by every business person out there. 

I often get asked how I managed to grow my business and Wordsmith Membership so quickly and I can say that it had to do with a lot of things. One of them is reading a lot. I’ve never been able to get lost in storybooks, but hand me a book on business and I can’t put it down. I soak it up like a sponge and then piece it together to make it fit my life, my business, and the way I run my business. Something about business fascinates me, and I love reading how things work, how ideas succeed, how they fail. I love reading stories about others that built a business empire out of a simple dream.

The 80/20 Principle

I remember reading about something called the 80/20 principle. It’s actually a really simple concept, but to me, it was absolutely mind-blowing. For the past few years, I have applied this 80/20 principle to running my own business and it has helped me in so many ways. It helps me make decisions quickly and always reminds me of the big picture.

Most people believe that when you put hard work in, you get the same return. If you put 50% of hard work, you’ll get 50% in results. The problem with that concept is that it usually doesn’t actually work out like that. People that have this mindset all too often spend time on the wrong things and move forward a lot slower than those who understand the concept of the 80/20 principle.

The 80-20 rule will teach you to focus on what’s really important in your life and your business. You can apply it to almost every aspect of your life and business and below I’ll list a few ways photographers can think about the concept.

The 80-20 rule states that 20% of inputs create 80% of the outputs and that 20% of the effort leads to 80% of the results.

Let’s talk about time management! Do you ever feel like your day is passing you by, and you haven’t really gotten anything that you had hoped to get done for the day accomplished? You’re sitting there working on…stuff…but nothing specific? Well, you’re not alone! In this article, I’ll go over some of my favorite things to do in order to stop wasting time.

Many of us deal with time management issues, especially those who work from home and have their own business.

Instead of working at a job that is 9-5, we have one that is 24/7. And it’s those 24 hours every day we have to look at, organize, and strategically set up to maximize our outcome for getting tasks accomplished for work and life.

IT ALL COMES BACK TO TIME-MANAGEMENT

Below I wrote out my favorite time management tips, and I’m hoping they help you plan and organize your workday, all while getting closer to your personal goals and helping you stop wasting time.

The biggest lesson I’ve had to learn as an entrepreneur is time management. And let me tell you – it was a hard one to learn. I look at it this way. You can run your business without time management skills and work against yourself for the rest of your career, OR you can learn how to be a time management genius.

Let’s be honest, running a successful business is one big net of getting things done to get you closer to your goal. The only way to do this is to know how to manage every little thing that relates to you running your business.

MAKING A PLAN

You need to have a structure, a plan, a schedule, deadlines, and you need to actually get it done. You need to be strict with work hours and not let your business run your life. I think this goes especially for those of you like me that work out of your home. Your office is right there, in your home, and it is easy for your job to start ‘ruling’ your life.

Sometimes it can feel like work is around you 24/7. You’re always checking your phone for notifications. You’re trying to squeeze in work in between making dinner and bath time. You go to bed only to be woken up by your phone binging and feeling like you need to get up to answer that one email which we know will lead to answering just another ten more. You’re stressed because you feel like you can’t be there for your kids 100% and be running your business 100% no matter what; you never have enough time in the day.

I hear you! That was my life before I learned how to manage my time. My new normal? I know what I need to do when I’m in my office. My phone does not run my sleep cycle and for the first time, I feel like I can be a happy, unstressed mom with my kids again. I hope that these little tips will help you too.

Since launching our Social Media Membership, we’ve had numerous requests for a workbook, and I’m thrilled to finally release this pretty little thing. It’s a 29-page workbook covering our marketing strategy. We even made sure to include 10 ready-to-go captions so you can jump right in and put this strategy to use!

Social media marketing has proven to be an effective means of boosting traffic and brand awareness for businesses of all sizes, which means that more and more companies are looking to get in on the action. The only problem? Creating a social media marketing strategy can seem like a daunting task, especially if you’re not sure where to start. But by following these three steps and using the Social Media Marketing Workbook, you’ll be able to create a great social media marketing strategy that works for your business.

The best social media marketing strategy is all about connecting with people—specifically, it’s about identifying who you want to reach and then how you want to reach them. Defining your target audience will help inform what content you should share (and when), how you interact with your followers, and which networks are right for your business. So start by defining who exactly you’re trying to reach before getting started with this social media marketing workbook.

A question I often get is about Facebook Advertising. Does it work? Is it worth it? It’s something people email me about, ask me on Facebook, discuss in my private Facebook group. After publishing my income reports and showing that I spent money on advertising, it has brought even more questions my way, and I’m so excited to answer them today. 

Most of you who are reading this probably have tried to use Facebook advertising and either lost money or quickly booked some new clients. This article is here to tell you exactly what will make your Facebook ads work, what won’t.

I have spent plenty of money on Facebook advertising. Plenty of losses and gains. I’ve spent money on ads that brought me nothing but negativity and money on ads that have connected me with some passionate creatives and made it possible for me to scale my business. There are so many possibilities with advertising, and what I think is most important is understanding how they can work for you.

I have made over a million with my business promoting different products and services, including Lightroom Presets, Social Media Captions, and even CRMs. Much of that money was made before ever spending a penny on Facebook. Before spending money on advertising, I had many months making anywhere from $10,000 to $14,000 a month without spending a single dollar in any digital advertising. Facebook advertising wasn’t even an option for me when I started my business, and I surely didn’t have a large enough budget to ever consider investing in any type of advertising when I first got started. So with that being said, let’s dive into what works and how to avoid possible BIG financial mistakes.

The official Business Planner every business owner needs to have!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD BUSINESS PLANNER

Our goal was to have a printable planner that is beautiful, functional, and inspirational for business owners. Every aspect of this planner has been created to help you organize your business and help you accomplish your biggest goals in 2021!

We’re sure many of you can relate to searching for the perfect planner to. Help you stay organized with all your business tasks. Only to be left finding planners that are beautiful…but lacked the functionality.

This planner is here to help you stay on task, organized, and, most importantly, set goals that you’ll be able to check off one at a time each month. Thousands of photographers and creatives ordered their Business Planner in the last years, and we’re so excited to launch a brand new updated version.

When it comes to the world of marketing and advertising, we’re lucky to live in a time where we don’t just have to depend on word of mouth. We can use modern tools like social media to reach thousands of people from around the world. All with just a click of a button.

If you run a business, you probably spend a great deal of time coming up with content to share and know the struggle of content creation. Sometimes it can be hard to know what to say to place yourself as an expert in your industry, so potential clients and customers are eager to hire and buy from you.

So let me let you in on a little secret…

When it comes to social media, it’s not about constantly selling and promoting what you have to offer.

Instead, it’s a place to build a connection.

A place where people get to know you more, learn from you, see what you do and what you have to offer. It’s so much more than a platform to sell. When you start using it as a tool to connect, you’ll see the sales and booking begin to come naturally.

You might wonder why that is…

When you can build a personal connection and create trust, you no longer have to “sell” yourself to potential clients and customers in order to grow your business. Instead, you can use tools like social media to connect with the right people. By having an open conversation, they will naturally learn more about what you do.

The best thing you can do for your business is offer value to those who need it the most. The truth is, I’ve never liked the idea of ‘selling’ to clients and customers. Instead, I love to see it as me educating them about a problem I can help solve and showing them how to do that. 

Here’s a quick example.

Wordsmith is a membership of professionally written social media captions for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs can sign up for free and get the first month’s worth of captions for free to see if it’s the right fit. If they choose to stay, they automatically get new captions, delivered every single month.

THE PROBLEMS IT SOLVES:

It helps entrepreneurs save time because they get professionally written captions every month and no longer need to write them.

They instantly get a social media strategy built into the captions. Which will help them connect to more customers and clients.

By using the captions, they can finally show up on social media the way they have always wanted to. 

They can quickly customize these captions to who they are and what their business is about.

Many business owners out there struggle with feeling guilty about charging what they’re worth. More than likely, you know the feeling of having to put a price on your service, art, and time, or skill. Wanting to charge what you’re worth but fear that others won’t see the value behind what you do.

The struggle between wanting to build a strong business with an income you can live on and deserve, doing what you love while at the same time wanting to give your clients everything they want for next to nothing because you love what you do.

Here’s what makes it hard: Most likely, you got started pursuing your passions not because of the money but because you love what you do. The truth is that many business owners out there are valuing their client’s feelings over their own business goals.

If you calculate how much you need to charge to reach your income goals, that number you might end up coming up with might very likely be out of someone’s budget. It might even be out of many people’s budget. That number might be higher than you feel comfortable with at the moment, and the idea of someone paying those higher prices for your services might be terrifying for you. 

The goal of this post isn’t here to tell you that you need to raise your prices; raising prices is easy. It’s something I had to learn with my own business, and something I hope to pass on to others who might be struggling with charging what they are worth.

I WANT YOU TO REALIZE ONE THING;

YOU ARE WORTH

EVERY PENNY. 

Stop being scared of charging what you are worth and calculate your numbers like a business. You put so much heart into your business so when you sit there calculating how much you need to charge, use your head and a calculator. Put your heart aside just for a little while, so the numbers behind getting your business to become sustainable long term are in your future.

Stop overthinking pricing and putting other people’s feelings above what you are worth.

I can promise you this; by Charging what you are worth you will;

COME ACROSS PEOPLE WHO CAN NOT AFFORD THOSE PRICES.

And that is ok! What someone else can afford doesn’t have anything to do with your worth. You might even find people who think you are worth every single penny, but you still won’t fall into their budget. Accept that not everyone will be able to book with you.

YOU WILL COME ACROSS PEOPLE WHO SAVE UP TO FINALLY INVEST IN YOUR BUSINESS

Because the investment is worth it to them. Working with people who believe you are worth it is one of the best feelings you’ll have as a small business owner.

Since the new website launch, I’ve had a few people ask why I decided to go with a Showit Website. Over any of the other options out there. Before I dive into why, I’ll start with what I was using prior, and the reason it was no longer the right fit for my business.

Since the very beginning, I’ve have used Shopify as my website platform. As an e-commerce shop, Shopify was always the best option. But over the years of growing my business, it became more difficult to build a space that really showcased everything I had to offer.

For years now, I’ve been making Shopify work, and for years I’ve felt held back as a creative. I’ve had to piece together apps in hopes of creating a space online I loved. Only to become frustrated with it a site that wasn’t a true reflection of my style and vision.

An open community that’s built around your brand is the hub for ALL, and I hope that more business owners realize just how powerful communities can be. Maybe by the time you’re done reading this, you’ll be inspired to start your own community too. Here’s how to grow your community online.

If you have a business, you might be wondering how to start, and I’m excited to share some of my favorite tips on doing exactly that. This way, just like me, you’ll have amazing people who are delighted to be part of what you’re doing.

I’m talking about loyal people who value what you do, are excited about the things you are working on, and are the first in line to sign up or purchase your service or product. You are there for them, and they are there for you. I believe all business owners deserve to have that because let me tell you; it makes the world of working for yourself a whole lot more fun!

Ready? Let’s dive in!

DEFINING COMMUNITY 

Let’s define community first; a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

I have this sense of community woven into my business. On my website, social media, the newsletter, you can find it everywhere. Truth be told, I actually love the fact that I have a business that’s not all about ‘me’. It’s about the resources I share to help others. Creating a community feel around my business has always come very natural, because I personally want to include others in what I do. Over the years, I’ve used social media to connect to people, but quickly realized that the conversation can sometimes feel a little one sided.

The whole concept of speaking at people, rather than with people. If you have a business, with social media you probably know exactly what I’m talking about.

Newsletter, YOUR sending an email to others.

Instagram, YOU post your photo and captions.

Facebook page, YOU post your status.

We’re celebrating because the new Showit website site is officially LIVE!

The process of bringing this new vision to life has been so rewarding. It’s been amazing to see everything come together so beautifully.

It’s been years of piecing together different things to get it at least a little bit how I wanted, and it feels incredible to finally have a website that is the 100% what I’ve always dreamt of having. A place for all my ideas, dreams, and resources. 

I spent months researching different platforms and decided to go with Showit Website. With Showit, I am using a theme from TONIC. I was completely blown away by how easy and enjoyable the whole process was. I’m working on a few articles and can’t wait to write more about the actual process of switching over and using a TONIC Theme for my new website for Modern Market. I’ll be sure to link those articles below when they are ready!

WHY YOUR WEBSITE MATTERS

Too often, we underestimate how important websites truly are. How they can completely change our outlook on what’s possible within the dreams, we pursue in life. It’s so much more than a website. It’s the place I get to share all the things I’m passionate in one place. While making an impact around the world.

So happy to finally share this new site with all of you. I’ll be writing a few articles on the process of switching over to a Showit.

This new launch has also allowed me to shift with my business. For those of you who have been with me from the very start know I got started as a portrait photographer who specialized in documenting motherhood. Later on, Modern Market was the place I shared the resources I used to grow my creative business. Over time it’s turned more and more into a community.

A community that I’m so honored to serve.

A personal letter to anyone thinking about quitting.

In the last week, I have had more people contact me who are thinking about quitting and throwing in the towel than ever before. People I have known for quite a while and some that were complete strangers. I’m not sure why in the last week, there have been so many people out there thinking about giving up, but it made me want to write a message for anyone who is currently thinking about quitting.

This is for you.

I want you to realize that you have not come this far, to only come this far. You have spent so much time, heart, and hard work creating something for yourself. Don’t you dare think about quitting. Realize one thing; you could be one day away from succeeding. That’s the thing with making your dreams a reality, you have no idea how close you are to it until you make it, and you could miss that entire opportunity by throwing in the towel and walking away forever.

We live in a world where people prepare a plan for failure rather than focusing more on making their dreams a reality. Stop spending time thinking about failing and how you can continue after not making it and start focusing on not quitting. Focus on making something work and push forward. Re-train your mind to focus on continuing to work even when it’s hard. When you get tired, learn to take a break instead of quitting.

I want you to realize is that making your dreams happen is supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to test you over and over again. When you pour your heart into something and don’t see it happen the way you want, it’s hard. That’s how it’s supposed to be. This is where grit comes in. You have to keep going even when you don’t see any change at all. You have to have a special kind of vision in your head to continue something that doesn’t work over and over again until one day, it works. Believe in your dream, your vision, and keep going.

Many people are scared of failure; the idea of not making it happen is often enough to get them to quit. The idea of putting so much time, energy, and effort into something they love and have it not be guaranteed can be paralyzing. But here’s the thing, if you learn to change your focus, you’ll realize that the only possible way to fail is by quitting, then the solution is pretty simple; Don’t Quit.

Learn to work for yourself. No one in this world will hand you your dreams. No one will put the hard work into making it happen for you. No one will stay up all night working on your dream. If you really want it, you have to work for yourself. If you believe in yourself, your work ethic, your drive, then nothing can stop you.

Never put a time limit on reaching your goals and dreams. You know how crazy it sounds to me when someone tells me they have been working on their business for three full years and are thinking about throwing in the towel? You are working on a dream that will be something you can enjoy the rest of your life. And you’re willing to set a time limit on making it happen and are disappointed in not yet achieving it in a few years? I wish I would have documented the days where no one knew who I was and the days I worked on something day in and day out while not one person noticed. Those days say more about who I am than today. Those days have built me into someone who does not quit, someone who can work for themselves and push forward until they make it and figure it out. And you can do the same, as long as you don’t quit.