I been thinking: “What are the biggest roadblocks and barriers to success in a photography business?”

And it occurred to me that the biggest reasons, the biggest roadblocks are behavior based.

Not external forces, which so many of us like to use as excuses and reasons.

It’s me. It’s you. It’s our behaviors.

I can increase my odds of success if I’m honest with myself.

The 6 BIG ones:

*Buying equipment (lenses, cameras, flashes…addicted to tech). You may have heard it before, it’s not the camera

Get good at posing, lighting, composition and the basics of good photography. Master it, best you can. Spending money on buying expensive tools will not make you a better photographer.

But we resist. We yearn the easy road.

*Buying props (no real plan on how they’re going to use it, as if owning is enough)…enough said. I found myself with way more props and backgrounds, most of which I rarely ever used.

I had a junkyard of ‘stuff’. Thankfully, I got rid of most of it. However, I do get tempted, like a junkie, and need to talk myself down from the prop buying high.

*Thinking you’re so good you deserve success to flow automatically into your life. This is the BIG one with photographers. As if talent alone (if you want to call it that) will get your the respect and business you think you deserve.

*Listening to your comfort friends….(at Tim Horton’s, StarBucks). I’ve always said: “don’t take advice from your mom, she loves you too much.”

Same with friends. Or, comfort friends. Or the dude at the camera store. They all have reasons why they want to lead you down the road of opinions and commissions.

Most of which is well meaning. If you get together with friends and start whining, moaning and complaining, the advice you’ll receive as a result will be the worst advice ever. Stop it.

*Take yet another workshop from some big name marquee celeb guru. I see this all the time:

“I’m signing up with so so’s big time workshop….” Blah blah….Ok, nothing wrong with learning. Nothing.

I’ll all for taking workshops, and learning from successful photographers. It all goes nowhere when we do nothing with what we learned, as if attending, taking some notes, asking a few questions and hanging with new friends is enough. It ain’t.

You need to break free and really put what you learned into action.
Solid, purposeful action. Strategic.

*Ignore marketing. The true key to the golden gates is marketing. But alas, this one gets ignored the most.

In its’ place, we do all the other stuff mentioned in this list. Most challenges live here, it’s why most shy away from marketing. And yet, true long term success in selling, profits, business principles, long term repeat clients is within your grasp if you take marketing serious and become a marketer of photographic goods and services.

Avoid the easy road. It’s  a ruse. It’s not real. It’s a lie.

Hard work, risk and nose to the grindstone get-er-done effort, over time, over and over, is what works.

That, and marketing.

These behaviors lead us away from doing what really matters.

Have a legit plan, with a realistic timeline and a spirit of focus and determination and you’ll increase your odds many times.

Your in success in photography,

Robert Provencher

P.S. MEMBERS…JOIN US Thursday, April 6th 2017 at 9:00PM EST with Chad Pennington “How to interact with
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