Sometimes you win sometimes .. well ... just muck things up

Some days you win and some days things don't go the way you thought.  

It doesn't take much to put you off your game, well we all have things that rock the boat and we loose the happy place.  That zone when you're on fire, and creative, and F.I.G.A.M.  
The other day I had a blinder, I got the brief done and then some.  I'd prepped the client for a delivery date that was easy and I knew that I could turn around the project in quick time to blow them away with my service.  Things went very well.  The next day I had everything editing and post production done so I delivered and they were well please.  So was I, happy clients make me happy that's for sure.  

The following day was different.  I can't tell you why, perhaps I got out of bed the wrong side, socks on the wrong feet, I don't know.  But the day didn't start well, and I knew that it was all down hill from here.  I had to stop myself a couple of times and reset my mindset.  Get myself in the right place to start being creative again.  The first time it worked, I got back in the grove, but on the second job I couldn't find my happy place.  I tried eating my favourite food, and listen to some good sounds that usually pick me up but I was in a funk.

I got the second job done just fine, but I wasn't in that creative space that I love.  It's hard too when you know you're there.  It's a funk that you need to identify and kick yourself out of.  It might be easier said than done but you need to know what things do that for you.

Here's my Top 5 things that help me restart the motor:

1. Listen to some good music (preferably up beat and positive stuff  - Six60, Salmonela Dub, Sola Rosa, Shapeshifter, stuff like that.)
2. Eat food that I love, and that's a list that is too big for this post.
3. Get on the cycle and ride, (however this needs to be for about an hour, shorter just doesn't fix the problem however good it is for me).
4. Watch some inspirational youtube stuff like Chase Jarvis's Creative Live.  Some good stuff there from other creatives talking about their art and life.
5. Go and play with the camera, no matter what it is, even a spider at the bottom of the garden.  (In other words, rediscover what I love about photography, play and push the boundaries.  Do a style of photography that I like and have never done before.  That's the best one)

I have to say that the top two are short-term fixes that I can do on the fly and when I'm on a project or on the way to a project.  The others I obviously can't.  

What are your things that help you get out of that funk?

Good shooting everyone.

Professional / Photographic associations .. where would you be without them.

Big learning curve today. 

I joined the AIPA (Advertising and Illustrative Photographers Association) this month and jump in on a pricing workshop.  It was like opening my eyes to see how far out from industry standards I was.  I can totally recommend a helpful association for this kind of support and education.

Knowing the lay of the land means you and see where you fit in the business landscape and get the jobs, and money that you deserve.  These days everyone, and I mean EVERYONE has a camera.  Either on their phone, or even a DSLR that can take some pretty mean resolution pics for under a $1000.  This is something that should make you stop and think.  

Should you be panicked?  No, and here's why.  If you're a professional, and I don't mean you do jobs for shits & giggles, then you take this seriously.  Here's my quote, please quote me.. go on!

"Any job is easy if you don't care about it."

It's true for anything that you do.  The more you care the more effort you put into it.  That for me is the difference between an amateur and a professional.  The time you stayed and extra hour or three to get that shot that no one else did.  The extra distance you walked, waded out in to the sea, climbed the hill, getting there that little bit earlier, you get the picture.  

So this care and effort means your work, your creativity is already miles ahead of the part-timers.  For potential clients who know they need a good image, and one that works for them, then you are the kind of person they're looking for.  Nothing can help those who are price driven.  They don't know or care what message the imagery they use says about their projects or business, and good luck to them.

The effort you put in can be for the actual physical effort you put in to your work, to the continuing education you engage in, whether that's in the creative side or the business side.  It all counts.

Joining the AIPA is one of those things that means I'm making the effort to be more professional.  I go to courses, national meetings, Image Nation, read the newsletter, etc etc.  I've even organised a coffee for the local A.I.P.A.'ers here in my district, just to put faces to names, make connections, and make the effort.

I think the sit down and talk with a coffee in your hands was great because we started talking shop, business, what's it been like out there for you.  I can't say we spilled the beans on what each one of us is doing, but it was great to get a feel for how the market place is doing.  It also gave me a feeling on who I could pass jobs that I can't do on to, and who I couldn't.

SO here's to professional associations.    

Good shooting.

The books

It's that time of year again!

You know the one that really sucks joy out of life.  The time where you find the sight of your computer makes you find other non-computer stuff to do.  I personally would love to have a slave to do this kind of thing for me, take the pain away.  But  I don't, I don't even have an un-paid intern, little own a paid book keeper to do the thing in life I really hate doing.

Lean into the pain!

Ok, so I'm plugging away putting the information in the right boxes to keep the accountant happy and not charging me their rate to do this stuff.  It's a very motivating thought.  I must step back and take a big-picture look at it, and realise that it's my own fault!  No, no, I hate being in this place.  The realisation that if I had done the monthly admin monthly, it would all be there, ready to go with minimal effort... Shit.  I hate tax and gst time!

My accountant set up a free business coaching session for their clients and I turned up to see what it was all about.  Funnily enough I was the only client that made the effort.  Tuesday night 6:30pm and I was Nigel.  It was a great time, I had the advice of two business experts for a couple of hours for the fee of $20.  We sat through the prepared material, and that was good.  A case study of a successful businessman in Australia, and I got a lot out of it.   

I got to ask heaps of questions about what I should and shouldn't be doing, once that was done.  They asked me some hard questions too.

• What are your goals, short and long term?  
• What do you want to achieve creatively and financially?  
• What are your life goals and how do you think you can achieve them?  

It's easy to give the glib answers, but I don't want to do that.  I thought I had most of this sorted in my head.  However it was the detail that I need to sort out.  

The upshot of it was, allocate time to work on the business as well as doing the work of the business.

Instantly I find this hard to do.  I'm a great photographer, it's the joy (apart from my family), in my life.  The other stuff.. not so much.  So there's a bit of work for me to do. Get down there and put all the receipts away, transfer the CSV file in to the spreadsheet, and populate all the expenses in to the right columns.  In the long run, I can save myself a heap of money by doing the dog leg work and not the accountant, who by the way, charges just as much as I do, in fact more.  So if I have to pay them 1.5 of my hours for everyone of theirs, it's just plain simple - do it myself. 

Good shooting.

I'm a photographer not a businessman!

So you think your a professional photographer.. and you'd be right to a point.  But here's the important point.. you're also and one might even say, "Mostly you're a business person".  

Wait .. what?!?!? 

Yeah that's right.  After nearly a year in business for myself I can say in all honesty that I spend the majority of my time working on the business, and don't taking photos or videos. It's not what I pictured myself being when I started this journey.  So lets be honest with ourselves, we are business people first and photography is the icing on the cake.  

So what does this mean?   We'll quite a lot actually.  It means that you have to approach your photographic life with that in mind.  It means that you have to be able to switch from creative mind to business mind, and sometimes do that quickly.  I recently experienced that when I was on a project and a client, in the middle of the shoot, started talking about a completely different project.  I was not in the right mind set of that, and it showed.  I was asked to talk about pricing for this new task and in a little bit of a panic said, "Can we talk in detail about this when we get this part done?"  They did say yes and sorry and we got on with the project at hand.  It was good that I did, the new project was complex and time consuming.  If I'd given a quick estimate then and there, I would have seriously under-charged.  I would have not been happy shooter.

Now this was a little off putting, however the client was in that head space.  They wanted to talk, and talk now.  So I had to change.  Let's not get into why they choose to do this, second guessing peoples methods or motivations is just counter productive.  We did talk about the project after the one we were completing was nearly done and I was able to focus on what they were saying.

So as a rule, I don't do quick quotes or even estimates.  It's a recipe for disaster, you rarely get enough information to make effective decisions on how long it might take to do the project and what it might involve.  Still you're there, the current project is happening and you have to think in a business like manner so you don't say something that commits you to a course of action that doesn't work for you. 

So what else does it mean?  It means that you need to know what your business is doing, i.e. the books, and how much does it cost you to run your business, provide for you and your family.  This cost will vary from person to person, and you can't charge your rates and what someone else does.  Maybe they're happy eating instant noodles every night, I know I'm not.  I want to pay the mortgage, get my kids in to a good school, and invest.  So there has be a cut off on what jobs I take and which ones I don't.  I do know, down to the cent, how much it costs me to run my business, on a week by week, and annual amount. This gives me a really strong goal, how many jobs I need to do in the year, and how much I need to earn to achieve my goals.  I can look at a given month and know that I have reached my target, or if I'm short, or I've kicked it out of the park (I like those months).  

If I have had a good month, I can say no to the small jobs that the client wants to pay nothing for, and is incredibly difficult and demanding.  This is just such a wonderful feeling, to say no.  Liberating and empowering.  Having said that, knowing your monthly goals sometimes means that you know you're coming up short and you need to hustle, get out there, network and get things going.   I've talked about this before here, and here.  In fact I have a few more ideas on marketing (or letting people know you exist), I should do another post about it.  

So realising that you need to be business-person, is really a mind shift you need to make.  Without it life can get really hard.  More than that, you can loose money, the business, friendships, family.. the consequences are real.  Just think of all those kids getting out of photographic schools these days, how many last more than two years?  How many are still going, or flipping burgers at McDs?  

So I'd like to impart a piece of free advise.. get a business mentor.  For over a decade I've had a photographic mentor, and he has always been great.  He was my wedding photographer all those years ago.  We hit it off and he's a good friend now.  He's very straight up with me and calls me on things that I do that aren't right.  I always try to buy him a beer when we meet up.

This year I got the chance to get a business mentor and I jumped at it straight away.  It's been great so far.  The guy is on the same wavelength as me.  We seem to have hit it off and talk the same lingo.  I was a little nervous when we first met, but I feel relaxed enough to show him my books.  He's outside my trade so I'm not sharing information with my competition, and he's a paid professional business mentor, so I know that he knows what he's talking about.  He's able to look at the business from the outside, see what gaps I have missed, give friendly advise on what to do and what not to do.  

Family is great, but more often than not they aren't business people, and because they know you or have invested in your business, or have other motivations, won't give you good objective advise.  If you're lucky you have someone that can, and good for you.  

The thing that I have really appreciated is the suggestions and even the homework.  Yep, I asked for homework and assignments.  The reason I did this was that I am a goal focus person.  I achieve when I get clearly defined goals.  It's a real driver for me.   I feel good when I complete the goals, it gives me the reason to buy a coffee to reward myself.  It picks me up when I feel a bit tired or down, hey I did achieve something this week! 

Look around and find a professional mentor group, or association, whoever.  

Good shooting and good business.