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Book More Photography Clients Podcast | Photography Business, Photography Leads, Marketing
How to Grow Your Business While Working a Full-Time Job (BTS: How I'm Doing It!)
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If you are working a full time job or even a part time job and running a photography business, this episode is for you. We're talking about balancing both and how I'm currently doing this right now. Welcome to the Purposeful Photographer Podcast. I'm your host Brooke Jefferson. This podcast is for those who know their purpose is to be a photographer. We will cover business strategy, marketing, pricing, mindset and photography tips and tricks. I've been a photographer photographer for over 10 years so I understand what it's like to build your business from the ground up, establish a reputable brand and stay in the know in the industry. It's my mission to equip photographers with the right strategy and mindset so you can impact the world with your unique gifts. Let's dive in. If you are new around here or you just missed the update. I have recently gone back to working a 9 to 5 career. I want to give a little bit of a backstory on that just to catch everybody up. Yes, I am still running my photography business full time. Nothing about that has changed. Basically I had a job opportunity come up in July and it ended up just being an amazing opportunity that I really couldn't pass up. And I don't know what it was, but after a lot of prayer and following the P's, I accepted the job. And yeah, it's been, it's been good. I will, I will give further detail update on that but I am working for an insurance company four days a week, Monday through Thursday, still getting Friday, Saturday, Sundays off and able to spend that with my family. And at the time of recording this we get a four day weekend because it is Labor Day weekend. I know by the time you're hearing this it's a month later, but anyway, it's just really nice. So I, I went back to a 9 to 5 career not because my photography business wasn't doing well. In fact, my photography business is thriving. It's doing just as well, if not better than we did last year and I am very, very thankful for that. Everything that I teach and I share on this podcast, in my programs, in the DMs, all the places, really has set my business up for the momentum that it has today. The reason that I turn around and share it with you is because I want to do the exact same thing. You will go through seasons of having to work a little bit harder in your business versus others. But honestly like that's just how business works. You know what I'm saying? So okay, if you're currently working a 9 to 5 job or even a part time job, and you're trying to balance a photography business. I know that it can absolutely feel like a struggle. Not going to lie about that, not sugarcoating that. It really can feel that way. And so I want to talk about how in the world am I doing this? When I first got hired, my very first day, I actually had to go on a three day trip, like three hours away to go to an insurance school that teaches you how to basically pass your exam so you can get licensed. So that's how I spend my first three days of the job. My husband thankfully came with me. We just pretended that we were on vacation. We definitely weren't, but we just, we tried to get into that mindset in the evenings after I would get out of school. And yeah, got through that and then went and did my first day in office in my small town. And then that Friday I went and I trained in another town just for a couple of hours, just to kind of learn the ropes of what I was doing. I'm gonna be completely honest with you guys though. Studying for an exam, like coming straight out of that school. Most people don't do this. Most people, they work a little bit in the insurance company, insurance office, probably like I would say four to eight weeks, then they go to school, then they study for their test for a few more days and then they take their exam. So they're probably taking their exams on month three. I went to school on day one, I took my test on day six, passed my exam also on day six, which was my birthday. So that was kind of cool that we got to do it that way. But I'm going to be honest, those first two weeks, I was so overwhelmed, so stressed out, I was in tears almost every single day because it was just a lot. August is naturally a busy month for our family anyway because we have three birthdays. We have my birthday, we have my daughter's birthday, and we have my son's birthday. We also have back to school and we also are like ending our summer. So we're trying to, you know, enjoy either last minute trips, last minute activities. Y'all just know August is busy. Even if you don't have a birthday in the month of August, it's a lot. It's a learning curve. So let's throw Brooke into a new job, into a whole new lifestyle that my kids are having to adjust to as well. And it was a lot. I will not lie. I slept so hard whenever I did get to sleep. And I was also like literally in tears multiple times a day. But it's okay because after, after two weeks was up and then I finally like, I had a weekend. We had such a relaxing weekend and I was so thankful to not have to go anywhere. And then third week, so this would have been, I think the third week of August. I'm pretty sure the third week of August I got to show up. And I. Every day it just, it felt so much better. I felt like the routine was finally sticking. My kids were back in school. Like, I felt like the weight of the world was starting to slowly fall off. And this week we just finished week four. If I'm not mistaken, it might even be week five because I didn't count the week in July. But anyway, that doesn't matter. Okay, so this week was also really good as well. And I finally like can do things by myself without having to ask a million questions. So they told me. So the other day I had to go back to Oklahoma City for more training. It was a one day training and so I went up there and it was great. Like they, they just, they just like to overwhelm me with information. But he said, and it really stuck out in my mind. He said, you know, your learning curve, it's going to take you all two years to learn everything. I'm like, what? Two years? I hate learning curves. I hate that. Like, that's the worst part of taking a job or doing something new or starting a new business. It's a whole new learning curve. It's a whole new ballgame. But anyway, I was like, okay, fine, well, I'm not going to be so hard on myself and I'm just going to take this job one day at a time. It's starting to become enjoyable again and I'm really starting to nail down this lifestyle. So I'm just going to take it for what it is. But I've learned a lot in the last month of trying to balance everything. And while it's still fresh in my mind, I want to give you some tips on what I guess I'm going to give you realities. I'm going to give you tips, I'm going to give you some encouragement. I think that's what we're going to do in today's episode. I have a lot on my mind. I also, yeah, this will be a whole nother episode. But just as a side note, I feel that God is calling me into a new season. And so, yeah, there's going to be a whole new. And here's the thing. I know that y'all have heard me. Maybe some of you that are like, ride or dies here. I love you so much. You, you know, you're in the know, so you're, you're in the know whether you're in my program, you're in the know whether you follow me on Instagram or you're in the know because you literally follow this podcast and you have for like two or so years, or maybe even all the way back at the beginning. But I've had a lot of, like, almost pivots. I'm going to call them. Maybe you've seen me, like, talk about, oh, I have a new podcaster. Oh, I. I'm gonna go do this thing. I feel like I've been really wishy washy. I've always been dedicated to photography. I love it. It's not going anywhere. I hope to do it for at least a whole another decade, if not two. Love it, love it, love it. I love teaching photographers. I love pouring into you guys. I want you guys to succeed. And I, I would teach every day of my life because that is who I am. I am a teacher by nature and I love it so much. And I will continue to do it. But I also feel like sometimes I get lost in the identity of being a photographer or being a photography educator, and that is where I throw all my value in when I am so many other more things. And at the end of the day, I am Brooke. Take all the titles away. I am Brooke. And if I can't find value in myself and who God says that I am, we're in trouble. And I know this is a side note, and you guys are probably like, whoa, I've never heard bro give a podcast. That's so personal. But I'm just in this new season and you guys, there's a lot is to come and I will even throw in some other things, like, I don't know where this podcast is going. I don't. I don't know if I'm going to continue to do this. I don't really know what's next. And I'm sorry to leave you guys on a cliffhanger, but it matters and it actually relates to this episode. So if you're listening to this, you heard me say, if you see some changes coming, then you knew they were coming because I kind of hinted to them. But anyway, with all the almost pivots, I do feel like God is calling me into a higher season. He's calling me to do something different. He's calling me to really step outside of my comfort zone and take this to the next level. And I feel like I've tried to stack being a photographer, being a photography educator and doing another business and now that I have this full time job, there's no way that I could be a photographer, be a photographer educator, work in insurance, and add this question mark business that's next. There's no way no one in their right mind should have to do that much. So what I'm saying is now that I've gone back to a 9 to 5, which I feel so much peace in, I have seen God move so much since I've taken this job. Like we could have a whole, we have a whole podcast on that, but I know that, I know I'm where I'm supposed to be, but I feel like God is asking me to take something off the. Take something off my plate and replace it. So with that being said, this might be the last new podcast episode that you hear on this podcast. Okay, so now we're going to pivot back. We're going to go back to this episode. Okay, so couple tips, realities, encouragement. The reality is when you are working a full time job or even a part time job and you have a photography business, whether you think your photography business is a side thing or it's a full time gig, you can have a full time job and you can have a full time photography business. I have both. The biggest reality, the biggest thing that I need you to get on board with is to understand that you cannot do it all. You're going to have to, like, some things have to go. So like for me, with my full time job, I realize I am extremely blessed that I have the choice to not work on Fridays. I would not have been able to take this job if it would have been Monday through Friday. I'm being really honest and I even told them if this ever turns into a Monday through Friday job, I'm so sorry, you're going to have to replace me because that is just a priority, a boundary, whatever. Like I don't want to do it. So I'm thankful that it's only four days. And four days is a lot. It's a lot, you know, Right. So what I've realized with my photography business and with my coaching business. So we have me being a photographer, working with clients, editing, calling, delivering all those things. But then we have, you have to remember, I have two businesses. This is part of my second business, it's the education bucket. And that is in itself a whole business. There are so many things that we do that you guys don't even realize that we do. You know, I have my blueprint program, I have my membership, I write email. So we've got email marketing, I've got social media content, we write blogs, I do podcasting. I have to meet behind the scenes with different people. I'm in a mastermind. So many things, that's not even everything, but that is. There's so much on my plate. And what I realized was, okay, you're limited. Like you only have so many hours a day to spend time with your family, take care of your body work, spend time on a business, spend time on your relationship with God, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There's only so many hours in a day. So I knew that taking this job, I was going to have to cut some things out. And so if you're in this position, you're going to have to cut some things out.
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So for me I had to think, okay, what are the things that I do that are a non negotiable? And one of those things was the podcast. I wasn't in that moment. This is before I went on a squirrel moment and told you that I, this is before I heard from God, okay, about this. I, I didn't, I didn't know this. But anyway, the podcast, taking care of my students and clients and then, you know, keeping something else that's consistent. So email marketing, anything that I could batch, anything that I could work on ahead of time, I kept. Anything that I couldn't or that was going to require me to be physically present on something, I let go. So for example, I had a ton, a ton of zoom calls, podcast interviews, getting to know other business owner, coffee chats, things like that, I had to cancel all of those because I knew that I was going to need these Fridays to do a little bit of the work that I needed to get done. And then Fridays are there for me. There for me to relax, re, prep the house, run the errands, do the self care. Right. Fridays are busy and so I did not want to make every single Friday a working Friday. So that's something else. Okay. Anyway, I had to take a lot of things off my plate. I had to take blogs off. So I'm not writing blogs right now. It's just the podcast content. There's other little projects that we wanted to work on or update. I wanted to completely update a course. I had to take that off my plate because I cannot commit to that in the season. So when you look at, okay, what, what am I going to commit to? What do I have time to do in your photography business? Well, think about the non negotiables. Your non negotiables are client communication. You have to have some kind of marketing. And so maybe you were trying to be on three different platforms, maybe you were trying to do email marketing, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and blogs. That's a lot and more power to you. Once you, you know, once you get in a rhythm or once you knock out a bunch of that pre batched content, then maybe you can, maybe you can like expand somewhere else, but you cannot do all the things. So I want you to look at what are the things that bring you the most success and bring you the most profit into your business. Those are the things you're going to focus on and keep the rest of it. You're going to press pause. So if you're like, oh, I've seen that a lot of people have had a lot of success on Pinterest. I really want to do that. But you haven't seen success from Pinterest right now I would put a pause on that. I don't want you guys to get so caught up that you are constantly working, constantly working. That is going to lead you to burnout and I don't want that for you. So again, this goes back to goals. I had to reevaluate my goals. So here's the realities. One, I had to reevaluate my goals because I knew I could not keep up with the pace of everything that I was doing when I took this job. That was reality number one. So I reevaluated my goals. I looked at how many photography clients I needed. I realized, okay, I'm definitely, definitely not going to pack my weekends full. I'm just going to take weekday clients and then do maybe like one or two Sundays or Fridays and that's it. So that's something that I had to do. Reality number two, I had to figure out, okay, what am I? What, what's a project? What's. What's like a, ooh, I want to do this, but I don't need to do this. So that's when I looked at non negotiables, looked at what's bringing me profit. And then three, the biggest reality of all, I have even more limited time. So what am I going to do with that time? I had to literally go in and create a brand new Google Calendar schedule for myself. What am I doing? How can I make sure that I set up routines and I set up time blocks that are going to support me in this new season? What time am I waking up every day to give me adequate time to not only take care of myself, but also get the kids up, feed them, feed myself, pack for work, do the school drop off to where it's not going to stress me out. I do not want to be the mom that's like, get in the car. I've been that mom before, I'm not going to be that mom now. I want it to be enjoyable because you know what? Limited time with my kids, I want to make it count. I don't need to send them off to school telling them to hurry up because I couldn't get my crap together in the morning when it has nothing to do with them. So I had to reevaluate that. Then I had to put on there, okay, if I know that I'm at work from eight to four, whatever it is, then I need to figure out, okay, awesome, am I doing, am I doing just this job's work the entire time? Which I. Spoiler alert. I am not. And that's just because, one, we don't have that much work to do. It's not that we don't work. We do, but we don't have as much as a bigger city would have. And so we do have a little bit of downtime. So on days when I have that extra time, then I am typically, you know, about, about two hours, I would say. I'm able to edit while I'm answering the phones, while I'm doing other things. So I am bringing my personal laptop to work, to work on my own business. Again, very grateful for that. I realize not all of you can do that. I know that. But if you have like, even on your lunch break, if it's not too much, like, let's say it takes you 20 minutes to eat and then you still get 40 minutes to, you know, either take a walk around the building, you could listen To a podcast. Maybe you get to go home. Maybe you live close. I don't know, everybody works in a different area. Maybe you bring your laptop and then for 40 minutes you're working on business things. Maybe that's you. Cool, that's awesome. But you need to figure out what works for you. I also had to set new boundaries. So my new boundary is we're not coming home from work and opening up our personal laptop and doing photography things. Absolutely not. We are going home. We are looking our family in the eyes, we are asking them questions, we are having conversations about their day. Maybe we're even playing a quick game of Uno before I start dinner. I am starting dinner. Cooking dinner or ordering dinner, which again, we don't really have anything to order except like a pizza from the local gas station, which I know that probably sounds really disgusting. It's actually not that bad. But anyway, so I have to like dinners of non negotiable because I am literally so hungry when I get off work. So we're eating like grandma hours at like 5:30. We are. It's just, it's just what we're doing in this season. And then, you know, what do I want my nights to look like? If you're someone that you cannot work at all at work, or maybe you just prefer to edit at home, maybe you, maybe you work from like a desktop so you like can't take it with you. Totally understandable. Could you pick two evenings where it is okay for you to work on your photography business? Could you do that? And that way you can say, okay, I'm totally dedicated to my family the rest of the nights of the week. But Tuesdays and Thursday evenings I'm going to spend two hours editing or I'm going to spend two hours doing what, like working on my business, Whatever that looks like. So yeah, okay, so those are the realities, Those are the tips. Here's some encouragement. You can do this even though it feels hard. If you are at a place or a season where you're feeling really overwhelmed, you've put too much on your plate, or you need to reorder. Like you maybe don't live and breathe by calendar like I do, maybe you need to learn how to do that. Maybe you need the skills to be able to time block or to manage your time better. Or maybe you need to cut something else out. So for example, maybe instead of cooking meals, if you feel like that is what trips you up every single day, you know, could you, instead of buying a whole bunch of groceries that go to Waste. Could you allocate some of your grocery budget to ordering food or doordashing? If you guys, if you guys have that. Guys, if I had doordash, I guarantee you we would be doing that most nights of the week. Not even going to lie. I know it's expensive, but my God, it's so convenient. And we don't have that. So you basically you cook, you order a pizza from the gas station or you don't eat. That's literally what we have here. So count your blessings if you have other options. I do know there's several of my entrepreneur friends that their husbands actually do the cooking, which I think is so awesome. And that's not to say that my husband wouldn't. I'm sure he would if I would ask him to. I just for me, like, it's just so easy to go with my plan. I meal plan. I know what we're having. I've already set out all the ingredients. I come home, open them, cook it, throw it together. You know what I mean? So you have to find what works for you. But the encouragement really is that you can do this. You might have to adjust some things. Maybe you're setting standards too high for yourself in your business right now. I know that you have this five year goal, but what is just your six month goal? Lower it down if it's stressing you out. Goals should, they should excite you. Yeah, they should stretch you, but they should not be overwhelming you into tears or into making you feel like you're not cut out for this business. All right, I know this episode was a little more all over the place and I know it literally, I scripted nothing. And I really don't script my episodes, but I like to have an outline just so I don't miss anything. I didn't do that for this. I didn't. I wanted to give you guys a behind the scenes. I wanted just to talk from my heart. I know we went on a couple of rabbit holes, but honestly, for the person that this episode was meant for, I really hope it helped you. I really do. I know that juggling jobs on top of running your own business is not for the faint of heart. So you need to know that you are doing a good job. You should be so proud of yourself. I don't care if you're in your first month, your first year, your first decade, you are awesome. You are killing it. You don't need to change. You don't. You don't need to change yourself. You can be good at both things. You just can't do all the things all at the same time. So I hope this was helpful. If you want to talk more about this or if there's something that I said you want me to elaborate on. Guys, DM me. I love. I'm over on Instagram. It really is me. I'm really going to reply to you so we can talk about it over there. But all right, that's all I have for this. I am going to go prep lunch and go pick up my daughter from school and I will catch you guys maybe. Maybe on the next episode we.