December 20, 2021
I have a question for you: have you ever gotten to Mother’s Day and thought, “Shoot I wanted to do motherhood minis this year?!” or like Christmas time and you want to do Santa minis but you forgot and now you don’t have the time to book a Santa? Those are both mini session examples but they’re true for content too like, “Oh, its world doula week and I forgot and I don’t have any content planned for it.”
Well when you take the time to do the things we’re going to talk about here in this episode, you’re not going to feel that way in 2022. You’re going to have your entire year and marketing strategy planned out.
WHO IS EXCITED?! I live for this stuff you guys!
Let’s start! We will break the process down into 4 steps:
As you know, success in your photography business starts with a very clear idea of what you want. If you don’t know what the goal is, you’ll never know if you’ve had success or not. One of you might say “success” is booking 1 birth client a month, every month. Another one of you might say “success” is making $100,000/year in your photography business.
This episode has the power to be your one-stop shop when it comes to planning next year, if you let it. I highly recommend listening to this workshop style, which means with a pen and paper and pausing to answer the questions as I ask them.
If you’re a student in Marketing School, there is an accompanying video & workbook that goes with this audio. You can find it in our private student FB group!
Step 1: We’re going to start by writing down your current metrics in your business. Now I know we said we’re going to do this together but this one might require a little digging on your part so do the best you can, and then come back to fill this in if needed:
Step 2: Then, I want you to set a reminder for you to check in 1 year from today (December 2022) to repeat this process to compare. So this will serve as the baseline of where we’re starting.
Step 3: The following questions might make you feel a little uncomfortable and that’s okay! It’s actually a good thing! Growth happens outside of your comfort zone. So, if you’re ok with it, be honest with these questions and yourself in the name of 2021 being your best year ever!
What do you want to do in 2022? What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? What would a wildly successful year look like for you?
When I just asked those questions, what’s the FIRST thing that popped into your head? Don’t censor yourself. Write that down.
Spend a little time right now daydreaming about that and write down things as you think of them: If I could wave a magic wand, and this would happen instantly for your business, what would that be?
Don’t think about any logistics! Don’t censor yourself. We’re gonna do that in a little bit, but for this section is about dreaming. Remember, magic wand. This is just HAPPENING. GO BIG! Spend about 4-5 minutes writing down everything you want to happen in your business in 2022. What’s that little voice in your head been saying “this would be cool” or “oh you should totally do this” – there is no right or wrong here, this is just a brainstorm list!
You can also consider, what did NOT work? What did you do in your business this year that you do NOT want to do again?
From the previous questions, what were some of the things that worked really well in 2021 that you want to do more of? Add that to your list.
Remember, for today, these are business goals. You can (and I hope you do) other types of financial or relationship goals, but today we are focusing on your business in 2022.
Look back at your brainstorm list and identify:
Money-making Ideas
Choose 2-4 from your Dream List above. This should be a list of things you’re excited about and your audience is excited about.
Examples : book 20 birth clients, book ## motherhood mini sessions, 20 fresh 48s….
Audience Building Ideas
Choose 2-4 from the list above. This should be a list of things you’re excited about, which feel fun and exciting, and will generate new inquiries/build your audience.
What are the things you no longer want to experience?
I’m so done with _____.
What are the things you’ve been WANTING to do, but have no made the time and space for in the past?
Make sure you’re getting specific here. “Take care of myself,” isn’t good enough, change that to “I will get a massage every week on Sunday after church.” See how you will KNOW if you achieve that or not by how specific it is?
It’s also important to make sure your loved ones are on board. If I want to schedule a weekly massage after church, I better run that by my hubby for budgeting and childcare reasons!
Space for them to write theirs: ________________________________________
What’s your income goal for 2022?
How much money do you want to earn in 2022? Some of you might already have this goal in your head. It might be scary, you might not know how you’re going to do it, but I want you to declare it as if it’s happening.
“Tavia, how do I choose this number?”
Don’t panic! We’re going to work backwards and figure out exactly how you’re going to hit this number!
Look back at your money-making ideas:
Are those exciting? Is this how you want to make money in 2022? Do these things get you pumped? You don’t have to know how you’d execute them, but if they were true for your business in 2022 would you be stoked?
Now, you’re going to take your income goal, and divide it out among your money making ideas.
Do you want them to be equal? Do you want one to be the primary income earner? Also look at 2021, where did your revenue come from?
Example:
Let’s say your income goal is $100,000. Your 3 money-making activities are home births, fresh 48s, and motherhood/family sessions.
You know you want to make a half from photographing births, so you’ll say you need to make $50,000 from photographing home births. Then you could divide the remainder between the other session types. You can tweak this and play around with it, but see how exciting this starts to get when you see your income goal divided out amount these sessions!? Making dream money doing dream work!!
You get to decide how much you’re going to charge for each:
Look back at your audience building ideas on page:
Are THOSE exciting? Is this how you want to build your audience in 2022? Do these things get you pumped? You don’t have to know how you’d execute them, but if they were true for your business in 2022 would you be stoked?
These are new and exciting ways you’re going to grow your audience!
Add it to your calendar!
I am doing this for the first time in 2022. Using a big “year at a glance” erasable calendar that you can get on Amazon.
Now, you have a solid plan of who you’re going to become in 2022. You have a kinda scary revenue goal, you have a list of money making activities and audience builders that make you super excited and you have it mapped out on your calendar for the entire year.
Now, with these new goals in mind…
Who do you need to be in 2022 to achieve these goals?
Let’s say your goal is to book 3 birth photography clients every month in 2022. I can sit here and tell you all the steps to do that but if you’re just going through the motions of the action without BEING that fully booked photographer, it won’t work. You have to start with being the person that you want to be in 2022, before you actually get there.
(BE-DO-HAVE DIAGRAM)
What do I mean? What kind of photographer or business owner would have access to that outcome? WHO is she? What’s her identity? Then you start making decisions from that place of who this photographer is.
So, when you’re making a decision about anything in your business in 2022, ask yourself:
I want you to do something & when you do this, you’ll have a much clearer picture of who you need to be to hit your goals.
If you’re multitasking come back to me.
I want you to sit …
Get comfortable …
Close your eyes for a moment if you can.
Imagine her… the photographer who already has the outcome you desire. Maybe it’s you at the end of 2022! Maybe it’s someone you look up to in business, maybe she’s totally made up in your mind as someone who IS the outcome you desire…
Open your eyes.
Now, with everything you just imagined, I want you to write down 5-10 characteristics she has:
I would love to see your notes or what you came up with after listening to this workshop-style episode on social media. Tag me in your behind the scenes on IG @_thebeautyinbirth_!
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