This month marks the tenth anniversary of when I officially started my photography business, and there are so many lessons I’ve learned in the ten years since. Ten years ago, the opportunities for online education were pretty meager and podcasts really weren’t a thing, so a lot of the choices I made were based on little more than instinct… and some of those instincts were wildly misguided!

I’m taking this anniversary opportunity to talk about the 10 biggest lessons I've learned in my 10 years as a family photographer - these are basically the top 10 things I wish I could go back and tell my 31-year-old self when I was starting my business. I figure if I can help any of you avoid some of my mistakes, I am all in for that!

Show notes: thiscantbethathard.com/podcast/034

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

In this episode of Mini Mentoring, I chat with Rachel Castro about two problem clients she’s currently dealing with - what to do now, and how to prevent similar issues in the future.

Show notes: thiscantbethathard.com/podcast/033

• Join The Consistency Club! Try your first month for just $1 

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

Part 2 of the series All Things CRM features a conversation among 7 professional photographers who use 7 different CRMs. We talk about how we each use our CRMs, we compare features, and we deep dive on how using our CRMs has affected our businesses (and made us money)!

Joining me today is my co-host/strategist for this series, Colie James, along with Sheena Magnesen, Kali Kraum, Jess Koehler, Kendra Greenberg, and Maryam Salassi.

Show notes: thiscantbethathard.com/podcast/032

• Join The Consistency Club! Try your first month for just $1 

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

In this episode of Mini Mentoring, I chat with Kayla Kohn about the strategies and benefits of adding print sales to your business.

Kayla is a family and newborn photographer based in Lawrence, KS. You can find her here and here.

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

Today’s topic is so awesome, I couldn’t fit it into a single episode… or handle it all by myself!

Colie James has helped me put together a two-part series on All Things CRM (that’s Customer Relationship Manager, if you don’t know). CRMs are a GAME-CHANGER in your business, and in Part 1, Colie and I talk about what they are and the power they hold.

Even if you already use a CRM, this series is worth your time: I’ve been using one for six years and I learned about a whole bunch of features that exist out there about which I had NO CLUE.

Colie is a documentary photographer and filmmaker based in Boulder, CO. You can find her here and here.

• Join The Consistency Club! Try your first month for just $1 

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

In the very first episode of Mini Mentoring, I talk to Kendra Greenberg about how to find a new client base after she significantly increased her prices.

Show notes: https://www.thiscantbethathard.com/podcast/mm-029

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

We’ve all had bad customer service experiences (I had a doozy last week which was actually the inspiration for today’s podcast), and I believe most of us strive to give really GOOD customer service… but when it comes down to it, what does that mean? Giving your work away? Freaking out if you haven’t heard back from a client that they’re thrilled? Letting pushy clients walk all over you? No, no, and heeeelllll no.

Today I’m teaching how the best defense against a problem is a good offense, and a five step approach to managing problems when they do arise (as they always will).

Show notes: https://www.thiscantbethathard.com/podcast/028

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

As photographers, we generally don’t have very complex business models. Once we learn some basic systems and strategies, it seems like everything should just fall into place. The big stumbling blocks for a lot of us - things like pricing, marketing, selling, workflow - those things are all pretty technically straightforward.

So why is it that we get stuck? Caro Cuinet-Wellings is a French photographer with a background in education, and today she’s sharing some invaluable - and very practical - insight on the differences between fixed and growth mindsets, and how you can train yourself to recognize and approach the speed bumps in your own business in a much more effective way.

Show notes: thiscantbethathard.com/podcast/027

• Join The Consistency Club! Try your first month for just $1 

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

Product sales are SO important when it comes to running a professional and profitable photography business - not to mention one of the cornerstones of the Simple Sales System - but they’re also a pretty big hurdle for a lot of photographers, either because they’re not currently offering products and don’t know where to start, or because they’ve been trying to offer products but haven’t seen much success. Today I’m diving into five strategies for choosing, pricing, and delivering products that will help transform your product sales into a strong source of revenue and client satisfaction!

Show notes: www.thiscantbethathard.com/podcast/026

• Join The Consistency Club! Try your first month for just $1 

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

Despite the fact that Pinterest marketing can be an incredibly powerful tool for photographers, it’s largely overlooked or misunderstood. Today on the podcast, Pinterest marketing expert Carolina Guzik shares the reasons why we should all consider Pinterest to grow the number of photography leads we get, covers the anatomy of a great marketing pin, and offers listeners a free download covering how you can turn Pinterest into a traffic-generating machine in three steps. With just a little effort (she says she only spends about an hour a month on Pinterest), you can see real growth on this free and underutilized platform!

• Join The Consistency Club! Try your first month for just $1 

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!