Mindset & Money Mastery for Photographers with Karinda K.
Mindset & Money Mastery for Photographers with Karinda K.
Secrets to Building a Half-Million-Dollar Photography Business and Achieving Work-Life Harmony
Discover the secrets to effortlessly scaling your photography business with our latest episode of "Mindset and Money Mastery for Photographers."
We'll dive into the key discussion topics in our upcoming Unicorn Photographer Masterclass, focusing on building a half-million-dollar business, personal growth, and handling judgments.
Learn the four key ingredients:
Elevate Yourself
Know and Understand Your Business
Lead with YOU
Set Up Your Business for Financial Success.
Learn how to align your business with your passions to avoid burnout, and discover the crucial role of financial literacy and planning.
Special guest Evelyn Hall of All Things Lovely Co. and the Lovely Home Podcast shares advice on balancing professional and personal life when she joins us on Friday of the Masterclass.
Whether you're a seasoned photographer or just starting, this episode offers actionable tips and key elements to elevate your business.
August 5 - 9, 2024: Grab your seat for The Unicorn Photographer 5 Day FREE Masterclass: https://masteryourmindmoney.com/unicorn-masterclass
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https://masteryourmindmoney.com/sales-journal-for-photographers/
Join Your Magic Year here.
Use the code PODCAST to receive special pricing when you enroll.
Connect with Karinda!
- Website
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Thanks for listening!
Welcome to Mindset and Money Mastery for Photographers the podcast. We help overwhelmed photographers make more money while simplifying their business by mastering their you guessed it mindset and money. Tune in each week for practical and actionable tips to take your photography business up a notch. Let's dive right in.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone. I am super excited to be here today sharing a little behind the scenes. Let's dive right in it. So this week, august 5th through 9th, we are hosting the Unicorn Photographer Masterclass and I'm going to dive into these topics in a lot more depth, but on today's episode I just wanted to share with you a little bit of an overview of what it has taken to get to this point, and you might be wondering why I called it the Unicorn Photographer Masterclass. And I called it that because I really wanted to share with y'all, on this week-long masterclass, exactly what it takes to build a business that is truly a unicorn for you and for me.
Speaker 2:That unicorn business is the half million dollars in a year business that I am super excited and super proud of and it really does feel easy. It's funny. People always say like, how do you do this? How do you run all these businesses? And you have two businesses to run and you do all these portrait sessions. Like how do you do it? And you don't have a lot of help, corinda and I'm going to share some of that today on this episode. You know I always joke and say that I do work a lot, but I have two businesses and, honestly, most of the time I spend working is on my coaching business and not on my portrait business anymore. My portrait business is so easy and it just like is so magical and really there's not a whole lot of moving pieces in anymore. It is just really easy and simple and I don't even have to think a lot to run it.
Speaker 2:As crazy as that sounds, I actually spend more of my time on my coaching business and it's funny because my portrait business makes me most of my money. My coaching business does not. To be 100% honest with you, I like honesty sometimes to a fault, but I love my coaching business because it allows me to help y'all and just knowing that I am helping y'all achieve this unicorn status of your business and really just find a new level of fulfillment in your business is why I do the coaching program, why we do the podcast, all of those things. It's because I love helping y'all and I love this industry and I just want to see everyone grow and be successful. So, yeah, my portrait business is so easy and simple, even though we do a lot of volume and we do a lot of work every year. So I'm going to share with you kind of what it took on a high level today to build that unicorn business, really on a deeper level, because when it comes to building this business, this really large business in my case, it took a lot of growth and it took a lot of change and it took a lot of uncomfortable moments, and that's really what we're going to be diving into during the Unicorn Masterclass. So if you haven't grabbed your seat, make sure you head on over and grab your seat. To that the link will be in the show notes and if you cannot watch it with us live, no worries, there'll be a recording available for a week after the Masterclass is over. So just go ahead and grab your spot there and try to hop on live, if you can, when you can. If not grab the recordings, try to watch them that night as soon as they're available.
Speaker 2:So a few things about running a business and running it to this level and really elevating it beyond what most people are doing. There's a few things that really need to happen. The first thing is you are going to have to elevate you. Okay, elevate who you are as a person, as a business owner, elevate all of those versions of yourself. Don't change who you are, but elevate you. There's this quote that says success is not about changing who you are, but about being the best version of yourself, and I truly love this down to my heart and soul. Now, whenever you grow as a business owner, you're going to have to grow as a person and there's going to be some change involved with that. But know that change doesn't necessarily have to mean like you're changing into a different person. It just means you're growing into your full potential. So keep that in mind.
Speaker 2:Now, something I will share about this because sometimes growth and the stretching and the growing and the evolution that comes with your growth as a person and as a business owner will cause people to look at you like you're crazy. You will get side eyes, you will get people saying what are you doing? What are you thinking? Oh, she's so different. But in all reality, this growth that occurs is really just about you stepping into the best identity and the best version of yourself. Now, sometimes that identity and that version of yourself is going to scare people and people are going to say you're crazy and people are going to say who is she? But that's okay.
Speaker 2:I think the thing to really remember here on this journey of elevating yourself and growing as a person is that when we're born we are a certain way okay. As life happens, we change. We change because of the things that people tell us. We change because the way people around us act towards us. We change because of the things we hear people say, and that part of the world shapes us into who we've become.
Speaker 2:So if you can think about a child, right, I like to think of my son, kai. There's been something really cool about having him and watching his just uninhibited, just spirit and excitement and energy and joy about everything. And honestly it's kind of sad because I see me in him when I watch him be like that. I see the little boy that will jump up on a stage and sing in front of a room full of people and dance like a crazy person in the middle of a restaurant and shake his butt because he thinks it's funny. And I look at that and know that's who I was as a little kid. That's who I was until the world happened to me, right, until the world told me that isn't cool, that isn't acceptable, that's not what we do anymore, and I shrunk into a hole. I became quiet, I became more of an introvert. I wasn't silly, I wasn't outlandish, because that's not what you're supposed to do. Right, we shrink to this place. But when I think of the elevated version of Corinda, of who I need to be to run the business that I'm growing, that version of me is just like Kai. That version of Corinda will jump up on a stage in front of a group of people and sing her butt off and dance and laugh and be ridiculous. But that version of me was lost along the way because of life, and I've had to work really hard to get back into that place and to be able to pull that side of me out as an adult, because it was lost.
Speaker 2:So when we talk about growth and elevating yourself, and when I say it's not about changing who you are as a person, this is exactly what I mean. Think about that for a second. Think back on who you were as a child. Think back on who you were before the mean girls of the world got a hold of you, or before terrible things happened. Right, that's just what life is, right. Things happen and they change us, and a lot of times, when things happen and they change us, we sink inside of ourselves. So I want you to really think about that and reflect on that this week is who is the uninhabited don't care what other people think version of you, the identity inside of you that you need to step into to be the business owner that you need to be? What would that look like? How would it be different? So that's really the first thing that I've had to learn and come to grips with as I built my business. I've even had people close to me tell me that they didn't think I was acting like myself, which hurts because I know that's who I am, right, that's who I am deep down inside. That's who I am when I don't care what the world thinks and I'm just being myself. But to see people close to me say that to me has been painful and there's been some hard moments in that growth. So know that you can grow and elevate who you are. You don't have to change who you are but also know that sometimes it might mean looking back and going back to that childlike version of yourself before the world got a hold of you. The second thing I want to share with you about growing and stepping into the identity of that unicorn business owner is going to be knowing your business.
Speaker 2:For me, something that really changed my trajectory of business was when I stopped listening to what everyone was just telling me to do and I stopped just being the cookie cutter, copy and paste person. I stopped taking someone else's price list and plopping it into my business. I stopped taking someone else's workflow or script or all of those things and plopping it into my business. Instead, I started to ask why. I started to learn and to understand why this person was using this method. I started to learn business on a deeper level and, honestly, when I did that, I started looking outside at the photography industry as a whole, because everything I learned in the photography industry was cookie cutter, copy and paste, do this because I said so and I was tired of it. It wasn't working and it didn't feel good to me. I had to learn the business fundamentals. I had to learn how to stop and ask why, how and what. And, most importantly, is this for me? Does this work for me Just because everyone says if you want to close image reveals and IPS, you have to tell your client you're going to delete their images or charge them a fee for storage and say you can't come back after today or else that you'll make the most money that way doesn't mean I have to do it, because it doesn't work for me and it doesn't align with who I am as a person and my moral compass and a whole lot of other things, but I won't go too far into that.
Speaker 2:So make sure that if you want to elevate your business, if you truly want to run a business that feels like a unicorn, feels good to you, makes you money, whatever that unicorn business is like for you that you take the time to know and understand business. The third thing I want to talk to you about is leading with you. Okay, leading with you and your business is so important. Guys and we're going to talk about this during the Unicorn Masterclass this week Make your business unique. This goes back to the cookie cutter business advice. Right, if we don't understand business and we can't build the business in a way that feels good to us and works for us, then our business isn't going to be unique. But also in all aspects of our business in our pricing, our client experience, our conversations we have with our clients, our ordering appointments, the way we photograph our clients, the way we dress our clients, the way we pose our clients. All of that should be unique and it should be unique to you and it should ooze from you and you should shout it from the rooftops.
Speaker 2:You need to know what fuels your heart and soul in your business, because when you know those things you will avoid burnout, you will avoid feeling like your business is a chore, because it will be something you so deeply love that it doesn't feel dreadful. I don't know if you've ever had that experience where you pull up to a session and you get out of the car and you see your client standing there and you're like ugh, these clothes, this outfit, and then you photograph them and the whole time it just feels like this is just terrible. These people don't get. I just I'm trying to do all these interactive poses and giggling and looking at each other and snuggling, and this client just wants to pose and look at the camera. What's happening? Well, that happens when you don't lead with you.
Speaker 2:You don't make your business ooze the unique, special quality of your heart and soul, what matters to you, what you value. You have to make sure your business aligns with that and you have to shout it from the rooftops. You have to share, you have to tell people what you believe in. You have to tell people what you value as a photographer, right, and when I say this, I will add, I don't mean like politically or religious or anything like that. What I mean is what makes your heart go pitter patter, right, when you pick up your camera. What is it about? What you're capturing that is important and valuable, and also having that messaging down and knowing that it's different than what other people around you are doing, knowing that I can have somebody next door I'll use. Kaylee is one of my coaching clients that lives close to me. We photograph the same thing, but who we are as people is different. What we create is different. We both photograph equestrians with their horses, but we're different people. We attract our people and that is what matters. Right? It also gets rid of your competition when you can speak to and attract who your people are. So lead with you, make your business unique and shout it from the rooftops. And the other thing that is really important in this whole journey is setting up your business financially for success Knowing your numbers, understanding pricing.
Speaker 2:Most businesses go out of business because of a lack of money. Why else would you shut down a business. I'm going to guess that 99% of the time, if a business shuts down, it's because they're not making money. It's not because they are so incredibly successful that they're just like I'm just going to shut down. No, people shut down because they can't afford to pay the bills. People shut down because they don't make enough money to make it worth their time. People shut down because they have to go get a real job.
Speaker 2:No matter how you feel about what amount of money you want to make whether you want to make a million dollars or $30,000 a year, wherever you lay on the spectrum you have to know and understand your finances. As a business owner, you cannot run into a business and not know how to pay your bills, and not have a business plan in place and not understand how you're going to make enough money to feed your family. It just doesn't work that way, but actually in the photography world it does. You see people all the time having photography businesses who don't know their numbers, who don't know how much money they need to make to feed their family, to pay the bills, to keep the lights on. Why? Because I genuinely believe that so many people out there are just out there teaching photographers charge this because I said so without teaching them how to build the business and the financials that they need to work for them, to pay their bills, to support their family, to live their life. And, honestly, it costs a lot of money to run this business. It costs a lot of money to buy this gear. And if you're not going to make money but you're going to spend all this time learning your craft, then what is the point? It's just an expensive hobby.
Speaker 2:Know your numbers and make sure your numbers are set up for success, and that is going to change everything. When I finally really understood my numbers and also got over the mindset junk in my head surrounding money and financials and all that crazy stuff that goes on, everything was so much better. Everything was so much better. Okay, so I've touched on these four things so far. So the first thing was you're going to have to grow into the elevated version of yourself. Don't feel like you have to change who you are as a person, just elevate you. And that elevated version lives inside of you. You just have to find it, you just have to uncover it, and we're going to really talk about that on our unicorn training.
Speaker 2:The second thing was knowing business, understanding business. So your business is not cookie cutter, so you can build it in a way that works for you and that way, when you're making decisions, you're making smart decisions and you're not just doing it because someone told you to do it. You are in a place where you ask why, how, what? And is this? For me, the third thing is leading with you. Make your business unique and shout it from the rooftops. Let your heart and soul ooze out of every part of your business.
Speaker 2:Y'all right now in my coaching business, I can honestly say this is year six now of doing business coaching for photographers. It's taken me six years, six now of doing business coaching for photographers. It's taken me six years, but as of this year, at this point in time, I think my coaching business oozes out of every pore who I am as a person deep down inside, and it makes my heart go pitter patter and I love it. It is just amazing for me and I hope that those of you that have been following me over the years have seen that and have seen that journey with my coaching business. It's taken me some time because I got there in my portrait business, but then I had to figure out how that fit into my coaching business too, and I love that and I feel like it just oozes who I am and it oozes my heart and soul and it shows people who I am as a person and I love that and I love that I'm able to show that to y'all.
Speaker 2:And then we also talked about setting your numbers for success. Understanding your numbers, understanding money in your business, setting yourself up so that you can survive and thrive as a business owner and pay your bills and feed your family and go on epic vacations or whatever it is that you want to do. Those four things are so, so important. There's a lot of other pieces that are involved in all of this too and, like I said, we're going to break this down this week on the Unicorn Masterclass. Make sure you go grab your seat. It's going to be very, very powerful. Five days of trainings here. So make sure you grab your seat. And on Friday we're actually going to have a special guest Evelyn Hall of All Things, lovely Co is also going to join us guest. Evelyn Hall of All Things, lovely Co is also going to join us.
Speaker 2:And on Friday we're going to talk about having peace in your home Because ultimately, we can have all these things in line in our business, but we also have to have some sort of peace in our home, because it's really really hard to run a business when your home is chaotic and when things are not taken care of at home. As a business owner, your home, life and your business it all becomes intertwined. I wish that I could say that it doesn't and it doesn't have to be, but I do think that when you love your business and it's such a big part of you, all those things do get a little meshed up. That is okay. Evelyn is going to share with us and we're going to talk about how to create more peace in your home what that looks like, and Evelyn has an inside scoop into my home which y'all will get to hear about. But peace in your home is really important and I think especially you know those of you that have kids and significant others and animals to care for all of those things. Right, it makes life more complicated. Just full transparency, and maybe one day I'll do a podcast episode on this.
Speaker 2:But I never saw myself as having a kiddo. I never really wanted kids. It wasn't ever important to me. It was like, if I have a kid, cool, if not, okay. Whatever's supposed to happen will happen in life and I was okay with that. And when Kai was born, it definitely put a different perspective on business and it also forced me to have a little bit more discipline with my time and what I'm doing in my business, because there's only so many hours a day that I have free of a kiddo to get work done. I think it really put a different perspective on things and it showed me a lot of things and I will never be the person that sits up here and says like I'm this perfect mom or housewife or any of those things. I'm actually very transparent about the fact that I am not the perfect housewife and I momming is not really my thing, necessarily. I love my kiddo but I'm not your traditional mom and that's okay.
Speaker 2:But I think in all of it, you have to give yourself permission to live your life and do your life the way you want to. Whether that's the traditional way or what people consider traditional or not, that's fine. Whether it means that you have a nanny or you have a maid because you don't like cleaning your house, or you have help here or help there. Or maybe you don't care if your house is clean and perfect and looks like it could be in better homes and garden. Maybe those things don't matter to you at all. That's fine, right? We all get to choose how to live our lives. We all get to choose what is important to us.
Speaker 2:And actually, evelyn of All Things Lovely Co, she has a podcast called the Lovely Home Podcast and she had an episode about like the mu point. I think it's the mu point and it's like you know some things in your house you're just not going to care about and you're just going to decide that they're not a priority for you. And I always laugh when my mom comes over to my house because she's always like Karinda, your house is a disaster. You have somebody coming over, they're going to see your house like that, and I'm like I don't care, it's not a priority to me. I don't care if there's dishes in the sink when I go to bed. It's not a priority to me. When someone like my sister's house, when I go visit her, dishes don't get left in the sink at night. It is a priority to them to always go to bed with a clean sink. It's not for me. I don't care. I'd rather go lay in bed and watch Big Brother at night before I go to bed and wash dishes.
Speaker 2:So, like you have to also show yourself some grace in the business, in your personal life, and you have to make decisions of what matters to you and what is a priority to you and focus on those things that matter to you and let other things go. Give yourself permission to just not care. I've had a few people reach out and like ask if I would do an episode about being a mom and balancing a business and maybe one day I will. I don't know when that will happen, but maybe one day. But honestly, like having a kiddo and if there's any of y'all that are listening to this that want and a Half Kiddos and you're worried, like how is this going to affect my business or my life in general, I had one of my biggest months ever when Kai was three months old or four months old, I guess we had a six-figure month. When Kai was a baby, I shot more sessions in one month. When Kai was three months old, I went back to work and I shot more sessions in one month than I ever had in my life.
Speaker 2:You get to do it the way you want to do it, right. I was taking portraits, I was stopping in between sessions, I was feeding a child, I was holding a baby while taking pictures. I think at one point in time, when he was an infant, I handed him off to a client's mom and was like, hey, can you hold my child while I finish your session? We were just making it work, right, because that's all you can do in life, it's just make it work. But through all of that, through life, through the ups and downs of gosh, it feels like the last five years have been a lot of ups and downs. You just have to figure out how to make it work and you just have to figure out what to focus on and what to prioritize for you and what's important to you and what you value. Guys, I can't talk about the ups and downs the last few years, because it's been a roller coaster, but you have to prioritize what matters to you, even this year.
Speaker 2:There's been some things that have happened this year that have downright just left me in a place where I'm like I just want to stop. I do like there's been some days when I've been like I can't, I don't want to stop. I do Like there's been some days when I've been like I can't, I don't want to do it anymore. I just want to be a stay-at-home wife, like that would be great, I'm going to have no worries and have a maid and not have to do anything. That would be amazing, but would I be happy doing that? No, I love my business and I love this life I've built and I love everything about it. But there's days when the world kicks you down and there's days when the world's going to try to stop you.
Speaker 2:This is another current ramble today, but sometimes I just feel like things need to be said. So I say that when they pop into my brain. But you get to choose how you respond in those moments. You get to choose how you react. You get to choose how you live your life. You get to choose how you run your business. You get to choose how you mom or how you spouse. Is that even a term? I will see you on the Unicorn Photographer Masterclass that is happening this week. Like I said, hop in, grab your seat, join us over and then we'll see you there. The trainings are happening Monday through Thursday at 1.30 pm Central Time and Friday at 9.30 am Central Time. I love y'all. Thanks for listening to my ramble today about life and sometimes getting off topic, but we're going to talk a lot more about all of these things this coming week and really dig into the nitty gritty of what it looks like to build the unicorn business. Bye, guys.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to support the podcast, please make sure you share it on social media or leave a rating and review. As always, you can check out the links and resources in the show notes over at masteryourmindmoneycom. To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on Instagram at masteryourmindmoney and don't forget to join our free Facebook group. Photography Business Tune-Up with Corinda Kay.
Speaker 2:Thanks, again and.
Speaker 1:I'll see you next time.