Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You know, when you see someone on Instagram or wherever, you can so easily be fooled to think that they just woke up one day and then they were suddenly in that place. I used to talk about failures a lot, about everything that didn't go well and how I felt about it. So it's definitely not something I'm afraid of sharing. But I do think that I've kind of forgotten about it lately. So I think it's time to talk about failures, and that's what I'm going to do today.
[00:00:34] In case you don't know me, I'm Ingvil Colness, and this is my podcast, sustainable photography. As I said, I wanted to talk about failures today, and that is because I'm in Kristen sweeting's mastermind.
[00:00:47] If you don't know Kristin sweeting, you are definitely missing out. So go check her out for sure. On our last call, the topic was failures, and it just really reminded me of how important it is to talk about. It's so easy to become defeated when you think that everyone else is doing great and you're the only one that's struggling, especially if you kind of started off just getting booked really easily and it wasn't hard for you. If you're just one of those people who, you know, things have just been rolling and then suddenly it kind of just stops.
[00:01:26] That can be extra hard because you're not used to having to work to get clients in the door on the other side.
[00:01:34] I think it's hard to do really well if the people around you isn't.
[00:01:39] I think you need both. You need that balance in a way. Something to get inspired by and to really stretch after and something to kind of comfort you and make you see that you're not alone when you're feeling low. So I thought I'd just mention a few things where I've messed up, where things haven't gone to plan, and maybe you can recognize some of these things. A few years ago, I had a mini shoot and no one booked. Kind of painful because it was in a time where I felt like everyone was doing mini sessions and I should do it, too. So I'd set aside a day and I was sure it was going to be so easy. But then no one signed up. And I also had a launch of my program a few years ago, probably three years ago, and no one signed up. And then when I think about it now, it's really so obvious because what I did in both those cases, I, like, mentioned it once, and then I just hid because I was too scared and too nervous. And I just felt a bit ashamed that people weren't jumping to get in because that's how it seems when everyone else were to share, like, oh, they shared, and suddenly they were fully booked. And it wasn't like that for me. I once. This should actually be an episode on its own, but once I lost photos from a wedding, like, I. They disappeared. The storage situation wasn't good enough. My workflow wasn't good enough, and I lost a bunch of photos. I got them back, but it cost about $3,000.
[00:03:28] Really painful, really stressful. And I said to myself that I couldn't be a photographer anymore because clearly I don't have what it takes because I'm so disorganized. I'm just all over the place, and it's just too stressful. It's too much to think about. All those memory cards and all the hard drives and everything is just too much for me. Don't know when that was. Maybe 2000, maybe. I don't know, 2018, maybe. So it's been, I don't know, five or six years. And I had a photo shoot yesterday, so I haven't given up. I realized that I could still do it, but it was definitely painful. Okay. I feel like I'm just. I'm kind of just listing things now just because I don't want to go in too deep in any of these things. Not because I don't want to, but just because I want you to see that a lot of bad things happen to everyone, basically. I've had clients wanting to sue me. That was during the pandemic.
[00:04:32] And even though, you know, I did all the things trying to help my couples out, they got new dates. I was willing to do all sorts of things to make them happy. Actually, two different couples were really unhappy, and one of them threatened to sue me if they didn't get their money back, and another one sent my contract to some kind of consumer aid or something like that. Obviously, nothing came of either one of those because I hadn't done anything wrong. I'd stretched really far outside of what I had to to make them happy. But to me, it was such a painful situation. Honestly, the whole of the pandemic was a nightmare. I lost so much business, I lost so much money, and it was just a nightmare. I think if I were to do it over again, not that I ever want that to happen again, but if I were to be prepared for that kind of a situation, I would make sure that my contract was reviewed by a lawyer, not just a template I picked up online, an actual lawyer to go through the contract based on my specific case, my conditions, my way of working. And I wish that I had had a different company structure. I am not completely sure about this, but I think in the US it's called like a limited liability corporation or something like that. Instead of being a sole proprietor in Norway it's called having an OAS. Instead of having an enkelpass unfortuck, which is what I had. And when you lose a lot of business and you're just working by yourself without any great structures around you, you lose a lot if things go bad. I started photographing clients in 2010, so it's been many years and many, many clients, so of course some of those haven't been happy. I've had clients who were really not loving my editing style. I've had clients who've had really bad wardrobe choices. And I would say in both those cases, it was definitely a lack of communication on my end. And I think that's something most of my mistake cases have in common. It's about a lack of communication. It's about me not being clear enough, taking things for granted, and it just doesn't work. I've also got a couple of mistakes that are about my lack of confidence and lack of business skills, and that is that I lost money for years because I had underpriced myself. I had no idea what it took in terms of money and time and effort to have a real business. And I would also say that I have wasted a lot of time and a lot of money trying to do everything myself instead of investing in help and mentoring and people to just do things for me. I've been so stubborn thinking that I could just do everything myself and I can't do everything myself, and that's just not possible. I can't be the best at everything, and I'm sure you can't either. So just make sure that you're making good decisions. Okay? So if we're going to fast forward a few years, I don't think too much about the mistakes I make anymore. I think it's because I've gotten so used to it. I make mistakes all the time, like probably every single day.
[00:08:10] Whenever I make a mistake now, I just try to fix it as soon as possible and I don't beat myself up about it. And I think in many ways it's almost good to make some mistakes. If you make mistakes, you know, spelling mistakes and broken links and all that, it can weed out clients. You don't really want. And some of the mistakes we make are, I'm not going to say they're inevitable, but trying to close all those loops and fix all the holes before putting something out into the world, it's going to take so much time that you're really going to be missing out of a lot of clients in business, and that's going to be a mistake of its own. And to me, if I think about success, what is succeeding, it feels like such a final stage.
[00:09:05] So I don't know if I've succeeded or not. I'm in no way done.
[00:09:12] I am very happy though. I make enough money to get by. I have the very best clients and I love what I do and the life that I've created. But I definitely think that there's a lot more for me to learn and to figure out.
[00:09:29] And there's definitely also a lot more mistakes to be made, for sure.
[00:09:36] But the reason I got here though, past all the difficult clients and the struggling financial situation, which lasted way longer than it needed to, all the unknowns and the hard times, the reason I got through all that was just because I didn't give up. I didn't give up when I wanted to. I just kept posting and sharing. And yeah, it's been somewhat irregular, but I kept going and I kept doing the things that I thought would get me closer to where I wanted to go. And I hope that you will too. Even when it feels like a struggle, even if you're not making as much money as you thought you would, or if you have fewer clients reaching out than you hoped, or than you have in the past, keep showing up and try new things. And having a group of cheerleaders and a coach behind you always helps. I know that I definitely couldn't do it without any of my people.
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