[REPLAY] Create balance in your photography business

[00:00:00] Speaker A: July is such a great time to relax, catch up on things, and not have anything scheduled. So the podcast is airing reruns of episodes that you might have missed. The ads might not be completely relevant in terms of dates, but if you want to know how I can help you, you can always dm Megwilkolnis on Instagram. That's Ingvild Kolnese. Or go to ingvelkolnas.com waitlist and sign up there to be the first to know what's happening. Welcome to episode six of sustainable photography. Today I want you to get to know Jenna Henderson. She's a photographer and coach with more than 16 years experience in the photography industry. She believes deeply in helping women confidently create a business on their terms and having fun while doing it. Her superpowers are giving creative women permission to feel empowered within their business journey by giving them action steps for making their business feel right for them. Creating balance is an important topic to Jenna and I can't wait for you to listen in on this conversation. You're listening to sustainable photography where you get support and education to build your profitable business in a way that supports your way of living. I'm Inguil Colnes and after eleven years as a photographer, I want to share what I've learned with you. So if you're looking for confidence, inspiration, and to the point tips, keep listening for full transparency. I also want you to know that I'm a mentor with paid offers, and I might mention some of those in this episode. Hi Jenna. I'm so happy to have you here. You're such an inspiration to follow on Instagram and I'd love to get to know you better. So maybe you can start by telling me a bit about you and your background. Just who you are and how you ended up as both a photographer and an educator. [00:01:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me on your podcast. I'm excited to be here. You're so fun to talk to as well. So yeah, I'm Jenna. I have been a wedding and portrait photographer for 16 years. I actually got my start when I was a sophomore in high school. I decided I wanted to have a clicky camera. I didn't even know what they were called, but I knew that the cameras made the click sound. I saved up some money and then my mom had to drive me to the store because I couldn't even drive yet and bought myself a camera. Couldn't even set it manual. Had no idea what I was doing. But I found out really quickly that I had a natural knack for it. Natural eye for light and for people and for composition and all of those things. So it was a hobby that I really started to get into. And then when I went to college, I had to pick a major, you know, and I chose journalism at first because I thought, okay, well, I'll never make any money as a photographer. I don't want to be a starving artist. And so I chose journalism because I thought I could write and take photos. And then after a couple years of writing, I was like, nope, I'm done. It's time for me to just go straight into photography. So I switched colleges, switched majors, got a degree in photography, and started working right away. I was 2021 years old when I started my business. I'm 36 now. And, yeah, I've been working full time ever since. And then a couple of years ago, I really wanted to get into the education part of it because I'm kind of getting to the point in my career where I'm wanting to shoot just a little bit less. My body's aging a little bit. My clients, I've got a great client base. I'm not necessarily looking for a whole bunch of new clients all the time. And so I had a lot of people coming to me on a regular basis asking me questions. How would you say this? What would you do here? What would you do in this situation? And so I realized that I had a lot of wisdom to give, and so I started to build up my coaching business. [00:03:49] Speaker A: Oh, cool. That's really fun that you've kind of just ended up there naturally. And I love the fact that you've been full time ever since you started. [00:03:59] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. I had to actually graduate half a semester. Semester early. I can, like, they had three semesters in a year, so I graduated one early because my calendar was busy enough with shoots and work that I did not have time to finish that last semester. I had to double up on my courses so I could be done. Yeah. [00:04:17] Speaker A: Oh, that's pretty amazing. Yeah. Cool. So this podcast is all about sustainability, and I'd love to know how a sustainable business looks to you. [00:04:28] Speaker B: Yeah, well, sustainability itself, like, we have to think about what exactly that means. Right? Like, sustainability is all about longevity and how you can have build a business that's going to last a while, which I've done. And my business turned 16 this year. And it's funny because my mom actually gave me a portfolio. I have it here in my office. It was a portfolio that I made when I was in college. It was my final, like, senior project or whatever. And she had found it in a closet and gave it to me recently. And I was flipping through it and some of the kids in there, like, they're young kiddos, and one of them is going to college this year. And one of them, like, I shot him as a little boy, and then last year I shot him and his wife together because he's a full grown adult. And so it's just crazy to see how these, one of my first babies that I photographed is now taller than me. And so to see these kids and these families grow over these years, I think that's what sustainability is about, is recognizing that this business isn't just here as a get rich quick, make money kind of scheme, but rather one that I'm going to be invested in for a while. Not just for myself, but for the lives of these people that I'm working with. And if I want to continue to work with them in their lives, then I've got to create a business that makes them want to come back to me again and again. I have to truly serve my clients. And that's, that's only half the story, though. Like, I have to serve them in a way where they feel warm and welcomed and excited to work with me and really pleased with the work where every time that they need photos, they think of me immediately. But I can't serve them so much that I give away all of myself. You know, I have to make sure that I'm not people pleasing. People pleasing doesn't actually serve anybody. I have to make sure that I'm still working at a pace that works for me so I don't burn out. I have to keep up with that balance. So it's two sided. It's one, serving my clients, but number two, making sure that what I'm giving is at my capacity to give so that I am not overextending myself, burning out and then closing up shop. Because that's not how you do sustainability. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely not. That's so true. And it really sounds like this topic of sustainability. I don't know, maybe you call it something else in your education and everything, but it really sounds like it's important to you, too. What would you say is your driving force? [00:06:58] Speaker B: You know, I think business is a means to an end. And what is that end? What is it that we really want out of our lives? For most of us, I would imagine we can make money in many different ways. We can go work a restaurant, we can go get a corporate job. There's so many different ways that we can make money. But we choose to run a business. Why? Because we want to have control of how we spend our time. Like, number one, we want to have control of where we're giving our energy and our effort. We want to do it with something we really, truly love. I really and truly love photography. I love coaching people. And so I want to be able to earn money by doing things that I love versus someone saying, hey, here's the tasks that you have to do, you know, a boss or a corporate job or whatever, saying, here's how you're going to spend your time. I get to decide. And then number two, a driving force, I think, behind my business, where I know behind my business is that flexible lifestyle, the ability, and it goes hand in hand of me having control and saying, okay, today I don't want to work today I want to hang out with my family. Today I want to rest day. I want to do whatever I want to do. Or I'm going to look at my week and say, well, I'm going to work really hard on these two or three days and then not work at all on the rest of the week because that's what I want to do. I don't have somebody, again trying to tell me, well, you have to show up at this date, this time, work these hours. I get to have that control. And so that's why, that's my driving force behind my business is it allows me to decide how I'm going to live my life. Someone said the other day, and I can't remember who it was, but it was like, how you spend your days is how you spend your life. And I think that gets overlooked sometimes because we think of our life as this grand scheme, and really our life is right here, right now. And so getting to choose how we do that, where we give our energy, our effort, our time, I think that's why we get into business in the first place. And so to build a business that allows us to continue to do that is really important. [00:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, I couldn't agree more. And I think the two things you mentioned, both the love of photography and also the fact that you want to create freedom and be able to work when you want to and basically do the things you want to, I think those are kind of like something that we're told that we're not allowed to make money doing things, something we love. We should just be, that should just be our hobby and we should just hardly charge for it. And then, you know, working less instead of working all the time. That's definitely a source of guilt for a lot of people, I think. [00:09:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. And I think in more recent years, that mindset behind you can't make money doing what you love has started to shift a little bit. And I can say that I will look at some of my friends that are my age that went the, like, corporate route, like doctor, lawyer, or working for a company. And sure, sometimes they make more money than I do, but then, like, I've got a friend, he's an attorney, and as an attorney, he makes, you know, plenty of money. And they. He and his wife went on vacation recently, and it dawned on me that because he has this corporate job, he gets ten days, ten weekdays out of the entire year to take off. That's just two weeks of vacation. And I'm like, I. I take off at least ten days a month, you know, at least once a week I decide that I want to sleep in late or I decide I want to get, like, yesterday I recorded a different podcast. I did a live on my instagram, and I worked with. I worked on some images, and I finished my work about halfway through the day. I was at a stopping point about halfway through the day, and I was tired. And I have other things to do. Obviously, there's always things to do, but I was like, you know what? I'm done for today. I don't have any more energy to give to work. So I left and I went and got a pedicure, and then I went home and took a nap, and it was great. And so sometimes, like, yes, I'm making money. Maybe not as much as my friend who's an attorney or my friend who's a doctor or whatever, but they don't have that freedom to. So there's. There might be a little bit of a trade off, but to me, it's totally worth it. It's worth it to have to say, I don't feel like doing this. And then I get to choose. [00:11:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm definitely the same. One of my favorite things now that I don't have a job is the fact that I hardly ever have to set an alarm in the morning. I can just wake up whenever I want to. And I do wake up quite early because I have things I want to do, but there's no one standing above me. Like, you have to get up at this time, and you have to be at that specific place because that. That is my least favorite thing. I just love having an empty calendar and spend my time however I want to, even though I love working. And that's usually what I do. Just the fact that I can choose. [00:12:03] Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. In the summertime, I don't have to set an alarm. Now, we've got school age kids, so in the school year, we've got to get up and get them to school. But there are days when, like, I wake up, I drive in the school and go back home and get back into bed, and. Because I can. [00:12:19] Speaker A: Yep, yep. That's really nice. [00:12:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:22] Speaker A: One thing I love talking about, because I feel it's something that, especially with Instagram and social media, we're supposed to look like we've got everything under control, everything is perfect. And I just love talking about mistakes because mistakes are probably where you learn the most from. And I never shy away from talking about my mistakes and the things that I've done wrong in my business. Do you have any mistakes that you can share? [00:12:48] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Well, and I think you brought up a good point about Instagram and always needing to look perfect. But what we have to remind ourselves on a regular basis is that Instagram does not show the whole story. It's people showing the best versions of the story or only a small part of it. And so to just always go into Instagram with that mindset, you know, when we see someone celebrating their wins, they're excited. We know we can't blame them. We do it ourselves. We're excited. Say, hey, look, I had this great win. I want to show you I'm excited. But what we don't see is every little loss or every little step that took to get that. And it may have taken them years to get to that one win. And so. But we don't see that. We just see people winning all the time. And so it's hard to remember that. But for me, I think one of the biggest mistakes that I made in my business was. Was thinking that I was going to get, quote unquote, there. Like, thinking that I just needed to get there. I just need to get to that level. I just need. If I can just do this, I'll get to that level and then I'm good. Because there is no there to get to, because as soon as you get there, it's like, okay, well, now, if I was just only there, if I. If I can just get to that level, there's always somewhere to go, something to do, somewhere to reach for, and it's never going to be a place where you can just get, quote unquote, there. And then business stops, or you. The effort that you have to put into it stops. And everything's just easy or everything is just automatic or whatever. It's always going to be something. It's always got to be something that we're working towards. And business has an ebb and flow to it and business is constantly evolving. I think that was another mistake that I made, is believing that my business had to be one thing. Always. [00:14:45] Speaker A: This is just a quick interruption to say if you want to continue the conversation, ask questions and hang out with like minded photographers, come on over to the Facebook group sustainable photography. I'll see you there. [00:14:58] Speaker B: And no, it doesn't like, it can, it can evolve. I can decide, you know, that this season I want to focus on booking elopements and maybe next, maybe I did that and I didn't love it. So next season I'm going to focus on booking family portraits and I'll do that. Want to try doing in person sales and big wall galleries and maybe that's great, but maybe I don't want to do that anymore. And it's okay. It's okay to have that ebb and flow. It's okay to change my mind. You know, our seasons of life change with where we are in our own lives. And so it makes sense that our seasons of business would change as well. [00:15:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so, too. And that's something that I'm also very passionate about, actually building your business around your life instead of trying to make your life fit into your business. [00:15:44] Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. [00:15:46] Speaker A: Yeah. But I know for me, mistakes have been a huge part in how I learn. And it's something that I implement a lot in my mentoring. When it's like, when I made a mistake, I make sure to always bring it back to my students and like, okay, so I did this thing that didn't work, this happened. So I always make sure that others can learn from the mistakes I do as well. And I'm sure you did same. But is there other things that you've learned from as well? Like, what are the best resources that have helped you to get to where you are? [00:16:17] Speaker B: So for me, in my business, you know, and for a lot of us, there are so many resources out there right now. A lot of people are teaching, a lot of people are educating. And I think the best thing we can do is to evaluate all the resources that are out there and say, okay, what's going to be the best fit? For me, it goes back to the idea of trying things on and allowing business to be a little bit of an experiment and not getting so married to the idea that business has to be one thing it has to be one way. And so the answer could be different for everybody, you know? And the answer changes for me from day to day. Like some days downloading a seven dollar mini course is going to give me exactly the nugget of information that I need. But it may be one little nugget out of this whole thing. Or some days, signing up for a $10,000 mastermind might be the thing that I need to do, and I'm going to be able to glean from that what I need. So you just never know where exactly the information may come from. So I think the best idea is to be open minded and say, okay, there's information out there. Let me evaluate what's out there. Let me see and let me try on precise. Is this going to fit for me? Do I like this? How does this feel for me in my business? Does it work for me? And if it does, then go with it. And if not, say, okay, I tried it, I'm going to move on. I'm not going to try to force it and say, okay, that was a good try. I learned something. Maybe I didn't learn something, but now I know. [00:17:43] Speaker A: Is there something that you wish you'd known earlier on because you started so long ago, you were very young. Is there something that you think, if I'd only known this one thing, it would have made such a difference? [00:17:55] Speaker B: I wish that I had shown more of myself, my personality earlier on. And there was a point in my business when I was doing that, there was a point in my business and this was probably in zero, 80, 920, ten, somewhere in there where I was blogging every single day. Every day. Blogs were thing then. I don't know if people really read blogs anymore because Instagram is kind of mini blogging, but this is pre Instagram. And so I was blogging every single day and I really was building a following of people. And so I wish that I had recognized that people are invested in me as a person in my daily life and figured out a way then to work that into my business. And I didn't. I just blogged and then I didn't blog anymore. And so that's something that I wish that I had kind of done earlier on. And there were a couple of things that early on I was giving away some information. This was, again, several years ago that it was like, oh, people need this. And this is something that I shouldn't just be giving away. It's valuable. People want it. People need it. And so, so that's something that I wish that I had known earlier is to recognize my own value and my own wisdom and knowledge earlier so that I could have made it a better resource for people. [00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really good. And I know that what you teach a lot and what you talk about a lot is balance and creating balance. I know that's really important to you, to say that you're creating balance. It's not something you find. [00:19:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:41] Speaker A: What do you consider a balanced life? [00:19:44] Speaker B: Well, that's. That's something that's going to be a different answer for everybody. You know, I personally find that my balance, I feel more balanced when I've been able to give a lot of energy into my business and being productive. And when I've created something like that, that makes me feel good and balanced. But after I've created this thing and I've kind of birthed this thing and put it down into the world, then I need to step back and walk away from it from a little bit. And then I need to go and rest. And some days that rest is going to be me in my house, in my pajamas, by myself, no children, no husband, no phone, no nothing. And some days it's going to be me and my family. We're going to go on an adventure. We're going to take a trip or a vacation, long vacation or a day trip, or just spend some time going to the movies or something. So to recognize that mostly what I want to do is give the best version of myself to whatever I'm doing. If I'm working, I want to really work. If I'm resting, I want to really restore. I'm talking not get out of the bed, flip on the tv and binge watch the office. Something like really rest. If I'm with my family, I want to really be present with them. I don't want to be trying to, like, glance at my phone, answer an email, hop on Instagram Live or whatever. I want to put the phone away, be focused on them and play with them and be involved and plan a day where they get the best version of me. And that, to me, is what balance is about. It's making sure that I'm giving the best version of myself to all areas of my life. So no matter what's in front of me, I know that I'm giving the best. [00:21:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really important, and it's really hard. I'm sure you've seen a lot of photographers struggle with this when it comes to balance and what to do, what not to do. So where do you see most photographers go wrong when it comes to balance. [00:21:30] Speaker B: So when we're working in our business, the stakes feel really high. We need to make money. Sometimes it's just, you know, depending on your family situation, your, your life situation, some photographers, it's just the extra money, it's just the fun money. Sometimes you depend on this income fully for your family. I've for myself, my family has either equally depended on my income and sometimes have been the sole income for my family. There's when my first time was born, my husband stayed at home full time to be a stay at home dad with him, and I was that main income for our family. And so the stakes are really high. And it's like, I've got to make this work. I've got to make my business work. And so because of that, I think we get sucked into a scarcity mindset, a mindset of fear. And this fear is that if we're not constantly doing something, everything's going to come crashing down. And so it makes it really hard to walk away from our phone because if the inquiry comes in, we want to answer it right away. If somebody is posted or responded to us on Instagram, we want to be able to respond back right away. We want to constantly be engaging or whatever. And so that's really hard to recognize the fear that's around that the fear of, if I stop, my business will come crashing down. And that's not the case. And there are things that you can do to make sure that that's not the case. And some of it's as simple as an auto responder on your emails and saying, hey, I got your email. I'm excited to talk to you. I'll be in touch, you know, between these hours and these hours on these days, or sometimes it's bigger than that and saying, okay, well, I need to hire a virtual assistant who can respond on my behalf, so I know that I can walk away if I need to unplug or whatever. So there's a lot of things to just kind of evaluate within our business. But yeah, I think photographers really struck with that mindset of having to constantly be on. And it's compounded by the fact that our phones, like, I don't know about you, but my phone is rarely more than like 3ft away from me at any given point. Like, I have it like inches away from me right now. And because of that, any random person on the planet, they can send me an Instagram DM, they can send me a Facebook chat, they can comment on Instagram or my Facebook, they can email me if they have my phone number. If they google me, they have my phone number, they can text me. Like, there are so many ways that someone can make a notification pop up on my phone and then poof, like, instantly my attention is drawn into my phone and away from whatever else I'm doing. And so that's, I think, also really hard to recognize that, how easy it is for our attention to be brought back into our business. And sometimes, I don't know about you, but I will grab my phone to take a picture. I'm not even, like, wanting to plug in. I wanted to stay on plug, but I grab it to take a picture and as soon as I pick it up, I see all these notifications. I'm like, oh, what is all this? And, like, immediately I want to check it all and clear it all out. And then there goes my attention again. And so that's something else that I think is really hard for us as small business owners, photographers, is to recognize that even though we can run the world from our phone, we don't have to all the time. [00:24:58] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I think you're right about that. And I've actually turned all the notifications off on my phone, so there's nothing that pops up, there's no banners or anything. But I still get that, like, urge to, like, have I got a new inquiry? I have to reply straight away. Just that feeling of everything will come crashing down if I don't handle it immediately, which, of course, isn't the case. But there's still that feeling. And I think it's also part that it feels like there are so many photographers, there's so many people that are ready to step in if I am just a tad late and replying. So, yeah, it's just that urgency of, like, I have to do it now, which I don't. [00:25:38] Speaker B: But, yeah, yeah, that's true. And it is hard to consider that when you think about all the photographers. But we just have to trust that there's enough clients for everybody. There's enough clients to go around. I mean, there's what, 7 billion people on the planet? There's not that many photographers. Like, there's enough for us and to know our own businesses and to say, well, how much do I actually need? Let me look at my numbers. Let me look at my time. Let me look at everything. How much do I actually need? And, like, I only need a handful of weddings and elopements in a year. And so out of the hundreds, thousands of people getting married in a year, I only need six or seven of them to book me. And so there's enough to go around, even if there's a bunch of other people that are looking for this work. And so that's what I try to remind myself when I feel that urgency is just to say, there's enough. There's enough for me. [00:26:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And that's a really good reminder, an important reminder to have, like, you don't need all of them, you just need a few, and you might as well make sure it's the ones that will respect your. You're allowed to have time off. [00:26:51] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Because if I'm. If I'm going to be working with these people, if they're not going to respect my boundaries, then that's not going to be any fun for me, and it means I'm going to be resentful towards them. They're not going to get the best of me. They're not going to be happy ultimately with their services. Maybe it's a subconscious thing. Maybe they're not going to be able to pinpoint why, but they're not going to be happy with me. They're not going to book me again, not going to tell their friends about me. What good does any of that do if I'm going to spend all my time being unhappy serving clients that don't respect me? And then it's not going to grow my business, what's even the point? [00:27:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that also is really important to keep in mind when we're really busy trying to book more, get more, do more, that it's like, what is the point? What do I actually want? What is important to me? [00:27:38] Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. [00:27:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Something that I'm struggling with, not as much now as I used to, but I get this feeling of, like, overwhelm. Like, there's so many things I want to do, there's so many people I want to make happy. I. There's so many things that I feel like is filling up my to do list, and I just feel so overwhelmed. Do you have any advice for that? Like, what do you do when you're just feeling so overwhelmed that you can't actually get anything done? [00:28:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, I think, a feeling that we get all the time sometimes it comes from, well, one thing you said is you want to try to make people happy. We have to stop that mindset right away. We can't make anybody happy. We can't make other people do anything. We can only control ourselves and how we feel about it and how other people respond is not our responsibility. And so that right there, I think going into it with a mindset of, oh, if I do this, I'll make them happy. No, we don't know how they're going to respond. And there's so many, so many different variables that go into other people's daily lives that we have nothing to do with. An example that comes to mind is recently, this past spring, a talented photographer in Nashville. Her name is Darian. She was doing mini sessions with some blooming trees, and I love flowers. And so I was like, hey, we're going to bring my family to this mini session with you. It turned out so good. She did an amazing job and she did some just of me by myself. So I've got some great branding photos from her, but I'm not going to frame the family picture that she took. And it has absolutely nothing to do with her. And it has everything to do with the fact that my son had on the wrong shoes. And it's a silly little thing, but if we. If she saw, because what I did actually wind up framing was a couple weeks later, we were at church for Easter, and we were all dressed up in pretty much the same outfits, but it was just a little bit better. I had all the pieces together for that. I was kind of, I didn't quite have all the pieces, didn't have the right shoes for the shoot, but I did for Easter. And so someone took our picture in front of the church, and that's the picture that's going to go in a frame. And so let's think for a moment, like, what if she saw that? You know, most of us, if we saw someone frame a snapshot versus one of our own photos in the same outfits, we. We might feel defeated. It's like, well, why didn't they do that? They hate me. They didn't like the photos. I'm awful. Like, all these things. Like, we can go into that, but it might have absolutely nothing to do with us. And so. And everything to do with something random, like the wrong shoes or who knows? You know, there's so many variables. And so we have to remember that we can't make people happy. We can make ourselves happy, we can serve people, but ultimately, how they respond is not our responsibility. And so that, I think, is a good mindset to keep in mind. So when we can remember that, I think that helps some of that emotional overwhelm, because we can start to release that and let that go and be like, okay, I know that I'm doing my best. I'm giving the best version of myself. That's the best I can ask for myself and release some of that. I think that helps with the overwhelm. And then we have to stop and say, well, what are all the things that are overwhelming me and why are they overwhelming me? Why? That's a big question to ask all the time. And what is it exactly that I think I should be doing? I think that word should comes up a lot. Oh, I should do this. I should do this. I should do this. And to stop using the word should or to evaluate why we should be doing it. Should you be doing a, like, showing up on Instagram live every day, or are you just thinking you should be doing that because you've seen other people do it? [00:31:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I actually think have to as well. Like, I have to do this. And, yes. Yeah, that's even worse. [00:31:35] Speaker B: Yes, I have to. Why do you. Do you have to do that? And the answer, if you really dig down and evaluate, it might be, no, no, you don't have to. Like, I think with photographers, something that I see over and over and over with my clients is how much time they have to spend editing. They have to. And I'm like, do you? Well, yes. I need these to be perfect. Okay, well, let's. Let's stop there for just a moment. Because perfect is not real. No. Perfect is relative. It's in the eye of the beholder. You can't define perfect for everybody. But I want them to be good. Okay, so you want them to be good. You want to put the best version of yourself out there. I get that. But why are you searching for perfection? Are you afraid of something? Are you fearful here? Can we dig into that? And then chances are it's this fear again. Fear is the center of it all. Well, if it's not perfect, they're going to hate them. They're going to hate me. They're never going to put me again. All of these things coming into play. And so to release that mindset and say, I'm going to give the best version of myself, it doesn't have to be perfect. I don't have to edit like this. I don't have to spend hours editing just because everybody else says they spend hours editing. I can figure out a way to deliver a great quality product. I can manage expectations around this with how I put myself out there and then change it all around, you know? So, yeah, if you're saying I should do this or I have to do this, when you're feeling overwhelmed, stop and question it deeply and allow yourself to really admit maybe to yourself what you haven't stopped to admit to yourself before and say, do you really have to? Why? Why are you feeling overwhelmed and just kind of clear the whole slate and get centered back on yourself, on your values, on your terms, and go from there. [00:33:24] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. You're definitely speaking the truth there. It's really hitting me that I do that, even though I know very well that there's nothing, that I set the rules. It's my business. [00:33:39] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:33:40] Speaker A: I do feel like I'm quite good at setting boundaries and being very clear. Like, this is the delivery time. Like, I always double the delivery time. [00:33:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:49] Speaker A: From my client as to my own expectations. But when I'm starting to reach my own deadline, then I still get that feeling of like, oh, I need to hurry up now. And then I kind of have to remind myself, like, oh, that's for me. I set that. I decided that. So I can still, I still have a long time to go. [00:34:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's about understanding what, like, stopping and just clearing everything out and being like, who's really making me do this? And why. Why am I really doing this? And questioning that over and over deeply? [00:34:21] Speaker A: That's. [00:34:21] Speaker B: That's something that I question a lot when I'm working with my coaching clients, for sure. [00:34:25] Speaker A: Yeah. I can definitely believe that is something that comes up a lot. [00:34:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:30] Speaker A: Yeah. We're taking a quick ad break. After ten years as a photographer, my friend Gerald knew what she was doing. But after joining the sustainable photography program, she's gotten so much further. She's booked a dream wedding in Tuscany, completely redone her branding, and has even released a whole new photography concept. She says the program is amazing. I've been working as a photographer for ten years, but finally Ingville has pushed me to be the photographer I want to be. Go for it. So if you want to go for it, then go over to ingvillecollonest.com sustainable to learn more. So when it comes to being a photographer, it's all about taking photos. That's the dream, you know, making a living from just photographing beautiful people in love, which is what I thought it was when I started. And that's just a small fraction of it. Like, most of my time, I spend in front of the computer, either editing or updating websites and emailing. That's a big one. There's meetings, there's all sorts of. Of stuff. So I'm okay with that. I love doing the Business side of my business, but I think I'm the Exception. Most photographers, they're all about the creative. They are artistic and they want that. And when I talk to photographers, they're like, yeah, I don't care about the Business Side. I just want to do what I enjoy and I try to bring them back to like, okay, let's just think a little bit about the business. Make sure that you've got everything you need in place, and then you can focus on the art and the creating. But oftentimes you can still feel like there's not enough time to do what I want to. Everything is just getting eaten up by client work and the business. So what do you suggest photographers do to make sure that they have all the creative time that they want? [00:36:25] Speaker B: Well, it comes down to, I think, focusing on what you really value and then looking at everything through that lens. Do I really value spending all my time updating this website, or do I really value getting out there and shooting? And so if in being creative, and if the creativity is what you value, then why are you spending so much time updating the website? Does it really matter? In the grand scheme of your business, does it really matter? And how can you cycle through all parts of your business to say, does this really matter? Is it really important? What do I have to, what I actually have to do? And what do I not actually have to do? How can I simplify? How can I refine? How can I get my business working and running like a well oiled machine so that it is easy peasy? I can focus. I know that it's doing what it needs to do. I know that everything's running smoothly. I've got systems in place so that that part of it takes very little to maintain. And I can focus more of my energy on the creative, on the fun stuff getting out there, because that's really what's going to grow our business. The more we shoot, the more creative we are, the more we get ourselves out there, the more our business is actually going to grow. Not with all this stuff behind the scenes. And so to take the time on the front end to evaluate what's going on behind the scenes and to stop and really say, question it all and cycle through it all, that's something that I think a lot of photographers don't do. They just kind of do things as they go, as it comes up and they never stop and take the time, because it does take time sometimes to like set up a CRM or to set up autoresponders, or to put everything, automate everything for contracts and invoices and all of those things. But it's important to do that, because the time that you spent on the front end doing those things, you save exponentially over and over and over again. [00:38:16] Speaker A: I completely get that. And I just. I really agree that being clear on what you want is really important. But sometimes it's really hard to say no. Sometimes it's like someone asks you if you can do something and. And you kind of just feel like you have to. Yeah. What do you do? [00:38:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's. It's. There's no other way to say it, but just say no. Like, it's. It's such a simple concept, but it's so hard for us, because, again, it goes back to that, a couple of mindsets that we have to make people happy. We have to say yes. We have to. People, please. If we don't do it, we're going to lose business, we're going to lose out on customers or clients. We're going to. Everything's going to come crashing down. So we feel this urge, this, you know, we feel compelled to always say yes. But sometimes you just have to say no. And that takes practice, and it takes experimenting. You might say yes to something, shooting something you've never tried before. You're like, I don't know. I don't know what the answer is, so I'll try it. I'll say yes, and then you shoot it. You know, it's like, I didn't really love that. So the next time the question gets asked, you know, the answer is no. And it's hard. It's hard to do that. And there is a way. I've actually created a mini course on. It's called the confident communicator. And it's a formula for saying no because it's something that I see so many people struggling with over and over. And it's a really kind way to say no and manage expectations in a really professional way to craft a response where you're going to say no, but it's not going to put an icky feeling in your stomach, and it's going to make your clients realize that you've got boundaries and you've got certain things that you'll say yes to and certain things that you'll say no to. And it gives them the opportunity to work within your boundaries. So, yeah, it's something that, that people struggle with. So if you struggle with saying no, it's okay. Like, I think we all do from time to time. But we have to really question again, like, why do I feel compelled to say yes to this. And sometimes when we say no, we are actually saying yes to something that we want more. Maybe if I say no to booking this session, it's because I'm saying yes to more. More family time or yes to more rest, or yes is something a bigger and better opportunity. [00:40:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's such a good point. And actually, one thing that I've realized in the later years is when I learned to say no to potential clients that were the wrong fit for me when I started actually saying no. Nothing has done more good for my business than that. It has made such a big difference because it frees up time to do the things that you actually want, especially as a wedding photographer, when there are such limited weekends where you can shoot them, because at least here in Norway, everyone wants to get married on a Saturday, and there's not that many of them in the summer months. So when you say yes to work, that isn't feeling completely right, and then maybe a few weeks later, something better comes along, and then it's like, yeah, I just. That weekend's gone now. Because I said yes to something, I felt I. Because I felt like I had to, not because I wanted to, but saying no to work, that's just something that we shouldn't do. That's at least what I keep hearing when people hear that I say no to work. It's like people go crazy for that. It's like you can't say no to money. And you can. [00:41:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Because if you kept taking work that doesn't perfectly align with what you want, then what's going to happen? You're going to, you know, those people are going to refer you, you're going to keep getting more of that type of client, you're going to keep building more of that type of portfolio. You're going to keep going down this path, and then suddenly you're going to look up and not even recognize what kind of business you have because it's not what you wanted and you've been people pleasing, and that's where the burnout comes from, because you're doing something you didn't actually want to do and you just get frustrated and burned out. And so to learn how to say no to those things and focus on what you really want, that's, I think, how we avoid that burnout. That's how that sustainability in our business really happens. [00:42:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I completely agree. Because it is a never ending circle if you don't learn to say no. So that is so, so, so important. So, except for that, what would you recommend doing to build a sustainable business? [00:42:45] Speaker B: You have to create a business fully on your terms, not what you think you should be doing, not what other people are doing, not what anybody asks you to do, but fully on your terms. It starts with understanding what your terms are, what you value, and building on that and staying centered on that place of self trust from a place of confidence, saying, I know this is what I want and this is what I'm going to stay focused on. And these are my terms and either work with me on my terms or don't work with me. And that, I think, is how you can build a sustainable business. [00:43:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So basically it kind of comes down to confidence and knowing who you are. [00:43:29] Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. And that if you don't know who you are, that's okay. I mean, sometimes we, it takes time to figure it out. You got to try things sometimes. But every time you try something, learn from it and evaluate it and say, is this what I really want? Is this what I really loved? And then build on that. And so that way you can start to learn who you are, what your terms are, and you have to allow yourself grace during that process. It's not going to be perfect from the get go. Sometimes you're going to try something, shoot something that sounded really fun and then it turns out it wasn't. But you can learn from that and you can learn for me, in my business, I thought was the pinnacle of a successful photography business was being a sought after destination wedding photographer. Because on paper it sounds really fun. You know, you go to all these cool places and you get vacation. You get paid to go on vacation, like all this stuff. But in reality I do, I personally do not like to travel with my equipment. I'm a film shooter. And so film through airports gets complicated sometimes because I'm a film shooter. Equipment going through. Like, I don't like to be hard on my equipment as I'm going traveling and packing it and all these things, it gets heavy. It's heavy on my body. It makes me nervous because I'm not going to check it. I have to have it in my carry on. And then when I get to these places, I don't want to work. I want to be on vacation. I want to like, bring my family with me and have a fun adventure. So, yeah, I want to travel and go vacation, but I don't want to work on there. And so it took me a couple of tries. Like, I did a couple of, I did a destination wedding in upstate New York. I did a destination wedding in Hawaii. I've gone places. And it took me learning and trying it to know that that's not actually what I want. And I thought it was. I thought it's what I should do based on what I was saying. But for me and what I value, that's not it. And so it's okay. It's okay to allow ourselves that grace and say, well, I thought that's what I wanted. I tried it. I don't want it. I can learn from it, and I can readjust and set my terms based, you know, reevaluate and readjust my terms. [00:45:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's also very true that it's. We're kind of told what the standard is. Like, for example, destination work. And it's like, if you've tried it, you know, so it's not a paid vacation. [00:45:59] Speaker B: Yeah. But the thing is, it may be exactly what somebody else wants, and that's great, too. Like, that's. That's the thing, too. Like, everybody's different. Every business is different. And so we can't base our business on everybody else. We have to fully base it on ourselves and get centered on ourselves and what we want. [00:46:17] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Thanks so much for having this talk with me, Jenna. [00:46:22] Speaker B: Oh, it's been so fun. [00:46:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it has been. It's been really good. So where can we go to keep learning from you? [00:46:30] Speaker B: So the party happens on Instagram, so you can come on my Instagram. I go live usually once a week. I'm doing little mini coaching sessions. I put a lot of stuff out there. If you wanted to grab that confident communicator mini course, it's a super quick course. You can watch the whole thing in under 30 minutes, and it's actually going to give you a formula for exactly, like, fill in the blank style for how to communicate your terms, how to craft smart responses. So when people ask us questions, you know, sometimes icky questions, like, oh, well, can you. Can we add this on or can you do this instead? Or can you edit this this way? You know, those questions can sometimes make us feel icky because we don't know what to say. We don't know how to, like, literally the words to say no. And so this confident communicator helps you form those responses so you can say no in a really professional way, and it gets received really well. It kind of helps eliminate those fears. So you can also get [email protected]. or jennacollix.com. either one. [00:47:32] Speaker A: Cool. I'll make sure to add the links to the show notes to make it easy, but thanks so much. [00:47:38] Speaker B: Yes, thanks so much. This is fun. [00:47:40] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to sustainable photography. Head over to instagramvelkolnes to tell me what you want future episodes to be all about. Check out the show notes [email protected] podcast. You can learn more about the sustainable photography program and sign up for the waitlist there. To get more of this content. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. Your support makes all the difference. Talk soon.