Work Life Balance for Photographers :: Give yourself a weekend every week ... What a concept!

Have you ever stayed up ALL NIGHT long rebranding your website?
Ever said "I'll be right there, honey!" And then two hours later you finally finish editing that shoot and you're way too late for dinner?
Or how about looking down at your calendar and realizing that you haven't taken a day off all month and you literally just worked a 28 straight day shift?

Welcome to the world of the self-employed small business owning photographer!
You are not alone! But you are about to burn out!

About a year ago I started taking the whole work-life balance thing really seriously. About 8 months ago I started doing something REALLY crazy....taking a weekend....every week! What? Yes. Two days, back-to-back, every single week. What a rebel!

Photographers are always impressed when I tell them about my weekend. They look at me like I just said I travel to the moon and back every week. I get it. Taking two full days off from your beautiful little business is tough! It's like mommies that miss their kids after they've only been apart for an hour. Your business is your baby. This is normal. But the thing to remember since that mama needs some 'me time'!

Here's the trick...
Schedule your weekends ahead of time. Why ahead of time. Book your weekends on the calendar at least two months in advance. Everything else gets scheduled around these weekends. Your weekends can shift foreword or back a day or two - we have to be flexible BUT never remove your weekend completely.

It's important to take two days off back to back. On day one you will probably think about work ALL FREAKIN DAY. Resist. My best advice is to get as far away from your house and office as possible. Go hiking or boating or skydiving! Force your mind to forget about it. #distraction If you hold out and make it to day two, something magical happens. You actually enjoy relaxing and you dont want to go back to work the next day. This is a good sign. It means you're getting the rest you need. Step three...force yourself to go back to work the next morning and discover the next layer of magic jelly beans....you're full of energy and excited about all the work you can get done with your clear mind and belly full of fire!!

Taking weekends has changed my entrepreneur work life. Seriously. I have so much more energy for life and enthusiasm for my work. I'm WAY more efficient and I'm actually doing OTHER things in my life now that have nothing to do with photography in the most wonderful way. Lol

Go live your LIFE!
:)
xoxo
Chamonix

Speeding Up Your Photography Post-Processing Workflow (Importing, Backup and Image Management)

My stomach sank. The timer on my phone was way over two hours. How had I wasted this much time in Lightroom? My to-do list was overflowing and I was using up all my precious time just trying to decide which pictures to give my clients. 

About a year ago, I finally started absorbing the concept that time is money - especially when you are running a photography business and you have 10 photo shoots waiting in line to be edited or you have 100 emails to answer or you have 5 new marketing books to read. If you're just getting started and your inbox is empty, you probably feel like you have all the time in the world to play around with photos but if you want your business to grow, you have to start redirecting your energy away from technical tasks and towards the business side of things. If nothing else, getting your work done faster means you have more time to go rock-climbing and make-out with your husband. ;)

Speeding up your post-processing workflow is an essential step in running a profitable photography business. I

Card Management Oh crap! You're standing in a field staring down at the back of your camera. The little picture staring back up at you looks familiar. It was the family you photographed last night. Now here you are at another shoot, you've used up all your CF cards and this is the extra on you brought along "just in case". Problem is...you don't feel 100% confident that this card has been uploaded & backed-up. If you don't format it, you have to tell tonight's clients that their photo shoot is ending early. If you do format it, you might have to tell last night's clients you accidentally deleted their photos. Crappidy crap crap.

Ever been there? I have. Too many times. So I was forced to find a glorious little solution that gives me peace of mind. I went to Pier 1 and spent $7 on 7 glass votive vases. I went to Benjamin Franklin Crafts and spent $4.99 on a sheet of chalkboard stickers and $3.99 on a bistro chalkboard pen. I went to Amazon and bought a CF memory card purse. A few Pinterest-worthy moments later and now I have a lovely little Card Management system! Here's how it works.

I write my client's name on the chalkboard label and drop the CF cards from their shoot into the vase.
Once I've backed-up, edited and released the images to that client, I remove the cards from the client's vase and move them into the 'To Be Formatted' vase. If I have my camera on hand, I might even format the card right then and there and then I'll drop the card into the 'Formated' vase.

Before I leave for a photo shoot, I grab the cards from the 'Formatted' vase and put them into my memory card wallet. Inside the wallet, there is an entirely different & wonderful system. When the card is formatted, the color side faces out. Once I've used the card, I turn it around so the white side (back side - where you can write your name) is facing out. This makes it easy for me to know at a quick glance mid-photo shoot which cards are available.

Data Management (File Organization)

Backup System

One of the most sickening feelings I've ever felt. It was like a hollow punch to my stomach as I heard the hard drive whirling around and beeping. It's dead and all my files are gone. It's our modern nightmare, this ability to loose all of our hardwork just by dropping a little metal box. Grrrrrrr..... I live in constant fear of this reality. It's taken me three years and 5 broken hard drives to develop a backup system that actually works for me. Because I love ya, I'm sharing it with you now to save you some pain & suffering. Enjoy!

Rule #1: Keep Track & Make It Easy.I am a Google Drive Spreadsheet junkie. So surprise surprise...my backup system revolves around a beautiful little spreadsheet. First important step, this spreadsheet has to be easy to access or you'll forget about it and give up. I have mine linked on the Bookmarks Bar of my browser. I update the spreadsheet every day to keep track of where all my files are. If it's not on a spreadsheet I won't be confident and I'll be constantly plugging in hard drives to double-check that the files are all there. I panic before I delete anything. With the spreadsheet I can actually sleep at night ;) Also, it's important to make your hard drives easy to use or guess what...you won't use them (enough). Keep them out on the desktop so all you have to do is grab the USB cord. If they are tucked away in a black-hole in the back of your closet, good luck finding the motivation to dig that out every week. No wonder your files aren't backed-up regularly.

Rule #2: Three Places at All Times. Make sure your precious digital images are stored in 3 separate places at all times. After a photo shoot, the photos are only in 1 place - your CF cards. Danger zone! Rush home ASAP to get them uploaded. I know husband/wife photography teams that drive separately to weddings so they keep their two sets of CF cards separate (just in case one of them gets into a car crash). Once home, I upload my images to two hard drives (HD-A & HD-B) and I drop my cards into their *glass vase.* Now they are in 3 places. Once the images are edited and uploaded to my online storage gallery, I can delete them from the CF cards.

Rule #3: Multiple Locations Your photos should be in 3 places at all times BUT those 3 places need to be separate. It's no good having 3 hard drives side by side on your desk. What if your desk got bumped and they all fell off the edge? Bye-bye photos. While I'm working on photos, I store them on one stationary hard drive, one portable hard drive, and my CF cards. After I'm finished with a shoot, I store images on one stationary hard drive at my house, one stationary hard drive at my grandma's house, and in the cloud in an online gallery (this is the same gallery where my clients view their images). At the moment, I'm also experimenting with adding a 4th location - good ol' fashion CDs. I'm saving each shoot to a CD and then storing the CDs in a CD binder that lives in my office closet. Ain't nothin' wrong with extra backup!

Rule #4: Stay Regular News flash, backing up files is not fun. It's time consuming, boring and sometimes stressful. You're never going to 'feel like it' so it's way too easy to procrastinate and then BOOM! your harddrive breaks and you realize you haven't backed up anything in 2 months. Not cool. So, I backup everything every two weeks - on the 1st and 15th of each month. These are my power days where I do everything from payroll to bookkeeping to logging miles and backing up files. I'm committed to the fact that I have to spend two days each month keeping things organized. I've spend years living in business choas and now I know that these two days each month is totally worth the sacrifice. Having these set days for tough business chores (in this case, backing up files) is my secret ingredient to photography business success.

Rule #5: Use Labels Save yourself the mental energy and stick labels on all your hard drives. This makes it easy to know which hard drive you are using and which one you're talking about. For business, I always have three hard drives in active-duty. As mentioned in Rule #3, two of these are big stationary hard drives in two separate locations and one of these is a smaller portable hard drives that travels around with me. Since I work at home, I upload the photos directly to HD-A (portable) & HD-B (at my home). Once I'm finished with a shoot, I take HD-A (portable) on a road-trip to grandma's house to transfer the completed folder of images from HD-A (portable) to HD-C (at grandma's house). Once the images are on both HD-B (at my house) and HD-C (at granny's house) AND I've uploaded to them to the online gallery, then I delete them from HD-A (portable). I delete them from HD-A because HD-A is a portable hard drive that I use as a transportation device. The big hard drives are the apartment buildings where the images live. The portable hard drive is their public bus transport. When the apartment buildings (aka hard drives) become full, they are retired to live safely on a padded shelf in two separate closets and they are replaced by two new big hard drives. The portable HD-A just keeps chuggin' along until one day when it will inevitably die and beeping death.

HD - A 1TB Lacie (Portable Hard drive)
HD - B 3TB Western Digital My Book Studio for Mac (Stationary hard drive at my home office)

HD - C 3TB Western Digital My Book Studio for Mac (Stationary hard drive at my grandma's house)

Image Management

Struggling to remember if you already released those pictures to your client? Wondering if you already shared those pictures on Facebook? Wonder no more!! We use Trello to keep track of our post-production. If you haven't used Trello before, you must start now! It's amazeballs!! It's a lifechanger. I heard about it from Entrepreneur on Fire and I've converted all of my friends! Seriously cool stuff!


So once you have your Trello account set up, you need to create a board called "Image Management" or "Post Processing" or whatever floats your boat. Then you create a list for every stage in your post - processing system.

These are our lists:
Templates
Import & BackUp
Photo Editing
Video Editing
Blog
Release
Time Log

When we get home from a shoot, we copy a template card from the template list. We rename this new slide to our client's name and we relocate it to the 'Import & Backup' list. Once the images are imported to our hard drives, backed-up, and imported to Lightroom, we move the client's card to the 'Photo Editing' list. So on and so forth. You could also use a spreadsheet to keep track of this data BUT a spreadsheet has it's limitations. It will only let you see the big steps in the process. It won't let you include the million little steps. Well, technically, you could include those in your spreadsheet but that would be 75 columns wide and way too overwhelming (trust me, I've tried it). So thank you Trello!!

When we click on a card, it opens up a checklist. We put all of the little baby steps in the checklist. For example, when the card in on the 'Photo Editing' list, we will be using the check list to go through the following steps: "Culling" / "Retouching" / "Editing" / "Exporting" etc... If the card was on the 'Release' list, we would be working our way through the checklist that has little tasks like: "Upload Gallery" / "Release Gallery to Client" / "Share Photos on Facebook" / "Make a Slideshow for Client" etc...

This system make it possible for us to log-in at any time and see exactly what has been done for every client. We know what stage of the post-processing system they are at and what little steps need to be completed before they can move on to the next stage. It's fantastic. This system also makes it easy for you to share tasks with multiple people. Fab! Try it out and let me know if you like it! :)

xoxo
Chamonix

thePhotoChicks Podcast — Golden Oldies & New Interviews

When was the last time you sat around laughing at yourself? For Miss Cheryl Ford, apparently that's all the time. haha (Sorry for the spotlight Cheryl.) I just love it when Cheryl sends me a text and tells me she's listening to our old podcast episodes and laughing out loud. It's pretty shameful but we do find ourselves hilarious — I think that's a good thing though. haha Those were the good old days of thePhotoChicks, when Cheryl and Chamonix spilled their guts about photography business and life and we went on tangents about cupcakes and road-trips and laughed hysterically at nothing. Nowadays, we're still having fun but we've cranked up the cool factor on our podcast.

We are now interviewing other photographers every week, asking them all the same set of questions and hearing about their personal journeys in the photography industry. Even if no one ever listened to our episodes, Cheryl and I would still keep this podcast going. We are so inspired by every photographer we meet (on Skype) haha and each 30 minute episode is an amazing outlet, a little change from the everyday march of running a business.

We love hearing from our photography buddies and interview alumni who send us little messages and Instagram photos when they're listening to thePhotoChicks. Apparently, our show is great entertainment while you edit photos. Perfect! That's exactly what we want and it's so rewarding to be contributing to the photography community in this uber-techie way. We love it.

If you'd like to listen to thePhotoChicks podcast, here are some of our most recent episodes (and some of the golden oldies). Enjoy!!

Interviews:Interview with Naomi Levit — Wedding & Portrait Photographer (Hawaii)
Interview with Katie Cann-McTaggart — Seattle Wedding & Portrait Photographer (Seattle)
Interview with Tobin Smith — Glamour Portrait Photographer (Vancouver, Canada)
Interview with Carly Bish — Wedding & Portrait Photographer (Seattle)
Interview with Melissa Kilner — Wedding Photographer (Seattle)

Golden Oldies:
Mistakes We Made in Our First Year of Business
Annoying Things About Photographers
Business Dreams & Photography Fantasies

xoxo
Chamonix

Pricing Your Photography by Demand Instead of by Principle

"$10,00, Are you kidding me?" the lady said to Picasso. "You only took 5 minutes to do that sketch. Isn't $10,000 a lot for 5 minutes of work?" — “The sketch may have taken me five minutes, but the learning took me 30 years,” Picasso retorted.

Photographers love throwing this story around. It's a way to make yourself feel better when people tell you your photography prices are too expensive. It's like we have to remind ourselves that we are amazingly talented "artistes" and our digital images are "priceless works of art". Well, I'm kinda over it. 

I'm tired of watching people's faces fall when they look at my prices. I'm tried of explaining why a digital image is more valuable than a print. I'm tired of puffing up my chest and pretending to be some fancy million-dollar artist that I'm not (yet).

I want to stop charging prices based on principle and start charging prices based on demand. 
I'm not going to charge $3,000 for a box of photos because "that's what I should charge because I'm a fancy-pants talented artist that's worked hard to get where I am and now you get to pay me for it." I'm going to charge $3,000 only when there are 3,000 people banging down my door begging me to photograph them and they're all offering to pay me $4,000 to be first in line.
The price increases because there is demand. 

I think it's ridiculous to charge through-the-roof prices when you're just getting started and your inbox is empty and your voicemail-box is empty and your bank account is....empty. Some people say that slapping that high price tag on your website right from the beginning will make you look more experienced and desirable. They say it's important to enter the photography market "at the right level" rather than trying to climb up the ladder. (I totally bought into all of this when I was starting my business.) 

I agree that you shouldn't sell yourself short and market yourself as a "budget" photographer when you want to be a luxury photography. Not a good idea. But if your goal is to be a luxury photography, the reality is ... you're probably going to take a few years to get there. Your prices will be much lower now than they will be in the future. Fact. Accept that fact and be comfortable with charging a fair but modest amount now. 

A lower (more realistic) price point will make it easier for you to get new business in through the door — which is what you really need right now. As the business pours in, the prices can start to slowly climb the mountain. And like I said before, when the clients are climbing in through your windows and vents, then you can start charging ridiculous prices because people will basically be throwing money at you. (Now isn't that a nice idea...haha).

xoxo
Chamonix

Sending "Elle Woods Style" Welcome Videos to Photography Clients

It was 2am. I was sitting like a mouse in my in-laws kitchen — gross computer light glowing on my face. I saw the ad for a "Social Media Assistant" at creativeLIVE and I was sold. What would set me apart? I HAD TO GET THIS JOB! It was kinda scary but I made a video. I did one take and told myself that even though it wasn't very professional or polished, it would show my personality and hopefully win them over. Well, I had the job in less than 48hrs.

Two years later, I applied for another job with a video. Less than 48hrs, I had the job. 10 months later (i.e. yesterday), I applied for yet another job with yet another video and boom, they liked me and I'm hired.

When it comes to applying for jobs, sending a video with the application is valuable because 1) it does make you stand out and 2) it's basically an interview — they get to see your face, listen to you speak, hear a little about you etc... before they even ask for an interview, you hand (a.k.a. send) it to them. Now you're already at the next stage of the application process — leaps ahead of anyone else who has applied. It worked for Elle Woods after all. ;)

With "normal" jobs, you're usually the one that approaches the business and you hope they hire you. With photography jobs, your clients are approaching you and you hope they hire you.

Either way, you're trying to sell yourself and win people over and get them to say, "You're hired."

I send little 2min "hello, i'm Chamonix" videos to almost all my potential clients (sometimes it's hard to produce if the computer isn't behaving). They usually love it and make some comment about how they "loved the personal response." These videos are my way of creating that personal connection quickly before they move on and hire someone else.

When I started making videos it was awkward and embarrassing. But with practice came comfort and with comfort came fun. Now I love making these little videos and I would encourage everyone to try it. Maybe one day someone will send me a video... ;) I can't wait.

xoxo

Chamonix

When Pricing Your Photography Don't Forget About the Hidden Costs

Our jaws probably dropped to the floor. Cheryl and I looked at each other, shook our heads and then looked at Cindy and said, "We can help you." haha

This morning, I went to coffee (which always means Zen Green Tea) with Cheryl (my best photography buddy) & Cindy (a photographer we've been mentoring together for a couple years). Our conversation wiggled its way to the all encumbering topic of PRICING. Cindy shocked us when she told us how many (too many) hours she's been spending editing her photos. Just the costs of her time & labor would force her prices up through the roof.

We grabbed a pen and paper and hashed out the finances of one photo shoot:

Cost of Goods:
Welcome Packet — $8
Shipping Cost for Welcome Packet — $5
Branded USB Flash Drive (for delivering images) — $10
Shipping for USB Flash Drive — $5

Cost of Services:
Hair & Makeup — $140
Photographer's Time — $50 / hr (2hrs)
Photo Editing Time — $50 / hr (2hrs)
or Outsourcing Photo Shoot — $20
Office Stuff (Sending Emailing, Phone Calls, Consultations, Uploading Images to Gallery etc..) — $50 /hr (2hrs)

Total Cost of Goods: $28
Total Cost of Labor: $460
Total Cost: $488

*And this is not even considering the overhead of just running the business. This is just specifically for one shoot — not thinking about more general expenses like paying for your editing software, camera equipment, online gallery subscription etc... We're just trying to keep it simple here. 

So anyway, we realized that we have to be charging about $500 minimum just to cover the costs of doing a photo shoot. We haven't even discussed charging for images/prints yet, which is where many photographers make their profit. If you sell images separately, and you charged $30 / digital image and you sold 30 digital images, now you're making an additional $900 for your shoot. That can pretty much be a large chunk of gross profit. Hooray!

If Cindy felt it was too expensive to charge $500 for a photo shoot and then an additional (up to) $99 for photos afterwards. She could fudge the numbers a little and take a risk. If she charges less for her photo shoot, say $200, then she needs to make sure she makes up the difference ($288) with print sales in order to cover the costs ($488) of producing that shoot.

However she breaks down the price, she has to be aware of the hidden costs that come with time & labor spent on a project. If she spent 30 hours working on a photo shoot, even if she charged $488 for the shoot and sold $900 worth of prints, she would still be in the red, not making enough money to cover her labor costs.

It's easy to brush aside labor costs when you're getting started and I'm actually really comfortable doing it myself. I don't think people should worry about it too much when you're just desperately trying to get experience and build a portfolio. At that beginning stage of your photography career, I think the best action you can take is to work as much as possible (even for free). Work and work and work some more!!! And while you're doing all this working, start getting into efficient habits. If you practice spending no more than 2hrs of editing right from the beginning, then once you graduate to the next levels of business and you really start to value the cost of your own time, you'll already be accustomed to working quickly to preserve your hard-earned money, not letting labor costs suck it away into the black hole that is Lightroom/Photoshop. haha

Set those timers on your phones, start working faster, and stop forgetting that your time is part of the cost of your product. Good luck my friends. :)
xoxo
Chamonix

Learning How to FOCUS - Growing a Photography Business in Seattle

When I lived in Maui, Hawaii, I had a 30 minute commute to the photography studio every day. I think 30 minutes is such a perfect commute time, especially when you are a big fan of a 30 minute podcast called "Entrepreneur on Fire" ha! It fits perfectly and I arrive at my destination full of inspiration. The show's host, John Lee Dumas, has a little saying... "FOCUS: Follow One Course Until Success". 

This little acronym is going to change my life. It's been my mantra lately and it's keeping me on track. I have a naturally tendency (inherited from my mother, I think) to over-achieve and bite off more than I can chew. It all boils down to good old fashion enthusiasm. I want to stick my finger in too many pies and as a result, I don't make any progress. I spread myself too thin and start to stagnate and feel exhausted. Talk about depressing.

Every day, I'm reminding myself to FOCUS. I've prioritized my projects and goals. I've got an on-going list of things I would like to do one day - knowing that that day is not today. Right now, I'm prioritizing my family film business (the Happy Film Company). That is the #1 project that I am FOCUSing on. Once that reaches "success", I will move on to FOCUS on my women's portraiture. I decided to organize it this way because I have a very clear vision for the Happy Film Company but my visions for women's portraiture is very blurry and therefore much more stressful. I'm going to let that whole side of my passion and business simmer and develop on the side until the vision is clear. 

Check out the Happy Film Company website!

Do you struggle to FOCUS?

What are you FOCUSing on right now?

Any advice for us spread-thinners to help us FOCUS?

Blogging Tips for Photographers 101 (Pt. 6): Finding Time to Blog

When it comes to blogging, most photographers really struggle to find the time. They are already swamped juggling 1001 other things and blogging gets pushed aside and sometimes skipped for weeks on end. When you believe blogging is going to eat up all your time, I totally understand why you are feeling so frustrated, uninspired, and intimidated. I really struggled with creating consistent blog posts when I was working full time for someone else. Even now when I'm self-employed again, I have been falling behind. At the best of times, when my blogging is regular and on a roll, these are the tips that help me keep momentum...

Perfection is the Enemy of Good

We don't have the time to sit down and write Pulitzer Prize winning material. Well good news folks, nobody is expecting that from you. There is no harm in checking your grammar but don't sabotage your blog's success by an obsession with perfection. I repeat this mantra, "It's good enough." I imagine reading my blog as an outsider - if it's good enough as someone else's blog, then it's going to work just fine. I'm the only one who wants it to look perfect. A good blog that's regular is more effective for your business than a perfect blog that hardly even exists. 

Change Your Blogging Mentality  

Instead of searching for a block of peaceful time in a quaint cafe to write your perfect blog essays, welcome the art of blogging into your entire life. I "blog" when I'm in line at the grocery store. I'll be thinking of a subject, develop the idea, think of the picture I'm going to include and when I get home it's practically written itself. 

Blog on the Go!

You don't have to be logging into your blogging website to create your blog posts. I have a document on my computer and iPhone that I use for drafting blog posts. I write ideas there, create lists, jot down funny moments etc… Sometimes I write entire blog posts. I do all of this offline so when I do log on, all I have to do is copy and paste. Sometimes writing in Notepad, Textedit or Word is a lot less intimidating then in that little white square on the blogging website because there's no chance you'll accidentally click publish. haha No seriously though, that little inch of separation from the internet can really help ideas flow.

Blog in Bulk

Of course you don’t have time to blog if you’re sitting down everyday trying to come up with new genius content, clever words and relevant photos. Stop trying to blog everyday in a panic and start running “blog marathons”. On a Saturday afternoon or a Monday lunch-break (a.k.a. whenever I feel like it) I stretch out my fingers and type out 3-4 blog posts in one sitting.

If you need help managing your time, I highly recommend reading this book: 

"168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think" by Laura Vanderkam

Part 1: Challenges of Blogging for Photographers
Part 2: SEO
Part 3: 10 Ways to Come Up with Interesting Blog Content
Part 4: The Pretty Journal Syndrome
Part 5: But I Don't Like to Write

Blogging Tips for Photographers 101 (Pt. 4): The Pretty Journal Syndrome

I started journaling when I was 12 years old - inspired by Bridget Jones’ Diary (of course). I remember standing in the back of our family room, watching the movie playing on the big TV on the wall. I was determined to start a journal the next day. My first journal was a black kind of leather skinny book. Looking back, I'm surprised I didn't get a red one, like Bridget's. ha!

It’s been over 12 years since I first picked up journaling, which means I’ve officially spent ½ of my life recording my life. So here’s a dozen years of journaling wisdom….

1) If your journal is pretty, you’re more inclined to write in it consistently (and enjoy the process). Thus, if you like how your blog looks, you’ll enjoy writing on it more. One of the big struggles that photographers seem to have is creating or designing a blog that they like. I know so many photographers that are resigned to the reality that they may never love how their blog looks. They've come to accept that sometimes the grass is always greener on another blog. Their never going to be in love with their own branding or blog design. 

My strategy for dealing with this has been simplicity. I figured I would never get sick of simplicity or regret a simple design. Things only get complicated when I start making the designs more complicated and colorful. For the time being, progress is more important than perfection. Simplicity is my mantra and greatest design guide.

2) If your journal is pretty, you’ll probably struggle to start writing on page #1 because you’re afraid to ruin it’s prettiness. Here’s your solution: take a pen and scribble all over that first page. Consider page 1 as your ‘Scribble Page’. It’s supposed to be messy (you can do it)… the perfection spell is broken and your handwriting on page two will automatically be looking prettier than whatever you did to page one. (Note: This is clearly a problem that only us control freak perfectionist suffer with lol)

If your blog looks pretty, you’ll be afraid to publish ‘ugly’ posts that don’t fit in perfectly with your branding. You’ll feel pressured to publish ‘perfect’ posts. I’m totally in this perfectionist boat with you. There have been days when I've spent 5 hours formatting a blog post so it looked ‘just so.’ Serious waste of my time and I feel guilty about it. It’s like a sick obsession or something.

The best solution I found on my own was to repeat constantly, “It’s GOOD ENOUGH. It’s GOOD ENOUGH.” I remind myself that the top priority is clicking publish and getting people to visit the blog. Sure, readers want it to look pretty but they don’t care if it’s PERFECT.

The best solution I learned from someone else.... "Progress not perfection."
You have to move away from the artist's desire to perfect the product and move toward the business person's mentality of making progress (even if it isn't pretty).

Good luck my perfectionist friends :D


Part 1: Challenges of Blogging for Photographers
Part 2: SEO
Part 3: 10 Ways to Come Up with Interesting Blog Content
Up next is Part 5: "But I Don't Like to Write" [Check Back in 2 Weeks!]

Blogging Tips for Photographers 101 (Pt. 2): SEO

"Keywords and SEO stuff is so boring! I want my blog to be #1 on Google but I don't want to waste time researching."

Check out Part 1: Challenges of Blogging

Learning about SEO is one of the biggest challenges for photography business owners who are using blogging as a way to market their business. SEO has been a mystery to me for years and I'm absolutely no expert at it. I'm a total SEO rookie and I wish there were a shortcut but sadly, as far as I can tell, there is no magic SEO shortcut.

Here's the fact of the matter… 

-If you want people to find you online, you gotta appear in their Google searches.

-If you want to rank high in Google searches, you gotta optimize your blog for search engines.

-You need to either A) take the time to learn and do the SEO yourself or B) pay someone else to do it for you. 

-If you are going to learn about SEO yourself, it's way too much to learn in one afternoon. Slow and steady is the only way to win this race. SEO is a never ending process that will be evolving & improving FOREVER. So learn a new SEO trick each week, apply it, and get on with business. 

Here are some basic SEO tips to help get you started on your long slog towards achieving your destiny as #1 on Google….

Keywords 

Learn about keywords. It's a challenge to really figure out your perfect keywords. Use Google keywords to help you brainstorm. Think about what your ideal clients are searching for online. Once you have your keywords, you've got to put them into action. For each blog post, choose an appropriate keyword and put it everywhere, at every level: in the title, in the first sentence, hyperlink it, in the tags, in the picture descriptions etc... The same keyword repeated over and over so Google knows that this page really is all about that keyword. 

Social Media BackLinks

You want to have your blog's URL splattered around other websites. You've probably heard that your back links on social media sites like Facebook & Twitter don't count. However, your links WILL be acknowledged on these social media sites: LinkedIn, Google Places, Google Profiles, Digg, Reddit

Getting Published on Other Blogs

When you write guest posts or submit your photos to other blogs, consider how those blogs rank. You may be excited to get published on another blog, but getting published on a blog with a low Google ranking probably won't do anything for your traffic or SEO. Focus on sharing your content with high ranking blogs. Use the Google PageRank Checker: http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php

These website are your new best friends:

http://searchengineland.com/

http://moz.com/blog

I totally know how it feels when you're drowning in a world of SEO research. It all seems like too much to learn. It feels like a waste of time. You don't want to sit there behind your computer all day. I get it. But I'm starting to think that if you really rely on online marketing and you're wanting people to find your business through Google, you're just going to have to put in the hours (or shell out the moola & hire somebody else to do it). 

The hardcore little voice in my head is saying.... "I'm sorry you find SEO research boring but it's probably going to have a bigger payoff for your business than however many hours a day you're spending redesigning your website or logo (for the 200th time)." 

So good luck my friends. I'm sorry for delivering the depressing news but at least now the delusion is broken and you can start to make real progress. Grit your teeth and DO. This SEO learning curve is the "not fun part" of running your photography business. But ya know, things are only NOT fun when you don't understand them or you feel overwhelmed. The good news is that the more you learn about SEO, the more intriguing it becomes. Just researching for this blog series has got me all SEO excited. ha! 

I'd LOVE to hear your SEO tips. 

Please share them in the comments below so other readers can learn from your wise words! ;)

Check out Part 3: 10 Ways to Come Up with Interesting Blog Content

Check out Blogging Tips for Photographers 101 (Part 1): Challenges of Blogging
Check out Blogging Tips for Photographers 101 (Part 3): 10 Ways to Come Up with Interesting Blog Content

Stop Hating on Other Photographers & Start Being Self-Centered

Last week, I sat at Starbucks in Kihei, Maui with my friend Naomi Levit and for two hours we moaned and complained about all of the mental problems that come with the territory of being a photographer. Both of us have been working on our business for a couple years now and we're both feeling dragged down by self-doubt, jealousy of other photographers who seem like they've got it all together, bitterness at photographers who haven't treated us so nicely, constant stress over our logo and website designs, blah blah blah. The cycle of negativity never stops. After hours of spilling our guts, we were feelin' downer than when we started. 

We hopped in our cars and drove down the town to the Thai food restaurant. As we sat outside waiting for our takeout order to be prepared, our conversation switched direction. We realized that sometime the complaining is a healthy exercise, purging all that crap from our systems BUT afterwards, you've got to lace up your boots and start running towards exciting things again. 

You've got to look at your goals, your fun projects, what awesome things you can contribute. The more you focus on yourself and what you're doing, the less time & energy you have left over to focus on other photographers. By the end of the night, we were both pumped up and feeling empowered. We couldn't care less what other photographers were doing because we had our own stuff going' on. When you find yourself in the nasty cycle of comparison & judgement, try redirecting that energy, be totally self-centered for a moment and start planning your own awesome adventures!!

When I got home, I recorded a little video explaining everything that was running through my head. (What an attractive screen shot, not! haha)

What do you think? How do you deal with all those nasty feelings?

Blogging Tips for Photographers 101: Challenges of Blogging (Part 1)

At the end of 2013, I told you I was going to be writing a "Blogging Tips for Photographers 101" series. I surveyed all of wonderful social media followers and asked you questions like, "What is the most difficult thing about blogging?" I analyzed your responses and created a series of blog posts designed to answer all your questions directly! This blog series is for you, my dear friends in the blogosphere, to help you improve your blogging strategies. I promised to deliver the series in January 2014 and it looks like that age old saying "better late than never" is going to jump out of my back pocket today. Lately, I'm in need of my own blogging advice haha. I've been terrible at blogging recently. I'm finding it so difficult to keep up simply because I'm working 40 hours at someone else's photography studio and when I get home I don't have internet and often the last thing I was to do is spend more time on the computer. I'm starting to appreciate why lots of people feel like they don't have time to blog. So, enough chit chat, are you ready to dive into 'Blogging Tips for Photographers 101"? Woopwoop!! 

During my market research, I asked people:

"What are the biggest challenge of blogging?" 

"What would make blogging easier for you?" 

"What do like/dislike about blogging?"

I saw the same questions/answers popping up again and again. 

So, I divided them into three categories:

MARKETING questions

How do I get people to follow my blog?

Keywords & SEO Stuff — It's so Boring, How do I Learn All About It?

How do I turn readers into clients?

CONTENT questions

How do I write interesting content?

How do I come up with new blog ideas & content?

How to find the balance between professional & personal?

How to choose which photos to include?

ADMIN questions

How do I find the time to blog?

How often should I blog?

How do I create a blogging schedule?

How do I design a blog I love?

My answers to these questions and more blogging tips are headed your way.
New episodes of "Blogging Tips for Photographers 101" will publish every other Tuesday (starting now).
Next time, we'll be tackling the big boy... SEO!! See you in two weeks!

Check out Part 2: SEO

Check out Part 3: 10 Ways to Come Up with Interesting Blog Content

Check out Blogging Tips for Photographers 101 (Part 2): SEO

Check out Blogging Tips for Photographers 101 (Part 3): 10 Ways to Come Up with Interesting Blog Content