This ever happen to you? You dream of walking to a bridge, and chucking it all overboard, into the flowing torrent of water below?
You know, a box full of cameras, lenses and dreams.
Poof! Gone….
What a relief it would be. Get rid of the whole fucking mess.
You imagine what a relief it would be to quit the struggle. The whole shit-show.
The constant barrage of flippant stupid questions from ungrateful clients. Questions like:: “Can’t I just get all the files on a DVD??”
For peanuts. You work for peanuts.
You imagine how good it would feel to close the book on your empty calendar with few to no sessions.
Ugh. What a pain running a photography business. After you poured every last dime on gear and education, you think “Maybe it was all a lie.”
As artists, we tend to over-estimate the pleasure to be gained from quitting and UNDER-estimate the pain.
WE ALL DO IT! Be honest.
When you look in the mirror of honesty we don’t want to admit how hollowed out we became.
You think you can quit it all, turn and head the other way. But you can’t. Here’s why:
Your ambitions, your hopes, your dreams, even if somewhat delusional, were still YOURS. If you walk, you bleed.
A long slow deadening bleed.
The struggle is real. So we think. And we delude ourselves into believing it’s the photography industry.
When the truth is even uglier. Running a business is hard grueling work.
SO many don’t understand what I’m saying. Those who do have a chance at success.
DO I have to spell it out?
The biggest lie in making it in photography is simple. It’s not about the work you create. It’s all about the marketing you implement.
Get that and you have a chance. We’ve had it too good for too long.
The easy days, and the big lie that came with them, are over.
I don’t consider myself one of the lucky ones, still in business, still churning out profits and sessions even though many would consider me “over the hill” at 60.
I consider myself, still, to this day, a student of marketing. I avoid as best I can the delusion.
School is never out.
Robert N. Provencher – Your Master Coach Marketer
“If you want to be a profitable and successful photographer, then study profitable and successful photographers.”
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