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The Difference Maker Revolution Podcast
Most Photographers Aren't Failing Because They're Not Talented... They're Just Operating Blind
00:30:00
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- [00:00]
A
Many photographers, they're not failing because of lack of talent. They're failing because they're operating blind. They are the captain of the ship. And even if they have someone else who's doing their bookkeeping or their accounts or whatever, they, as the captain, have to know their numbers. They have to know their numbers based on what they need to do yearly, what they need to do quarterly, what they need to do monthly, what they need to do weekly.
- [00:24]
B
Hey, difference makers. Welcome back to the Difference Maker Revolution podcast. Today we have the four amigos. We have Janine McLeod, Steve Safarida, Ronan Ryle, and myself, Jonathan Ryle. But we have a very important conversation to have today, team, because we see this happen a lot. We see where people get themselves into trouble. And it's not their fault. It is their fault, but it's not their fault. But it kind of is their fault, too. So what are we talking about today?
- [00:57]
A
We're talking about one of the key things that every business needs, Jonathan, because we see many photographers, and often they're not failing because of lack of talent, they're failing because they're operating blind. And what I mean by that is they are the captain of the ship. And even if they have someone else who's doing their bookkeeping or their accounts or whatever, they, as the captain, have to know their numbers. They have to know their numbers based on what they need to do yearly, what they need to do quarterly, what they need to do monthly, what they need to do weekly. And too often we see photographers failing because they just ignore it, you know, and it's. It's the equivalent of being out at sea with a massive fog, rowing a boat, and they feel that they're making progress and they're doing great work, but they're really just going around in circles because they have no sight and they're operating blind. They're going nowhere.
- [01:56]
C
So.
- [01:56]
A
And the other thing we see, Jonathan, is, you know, and we see this so often that, you know, you don't have a business, right? You don't have a business. And without numbers, it's as simple as that. Unless you know your numbers, you don't have a business. You have an expensive hobby. That's what you have. You have an expensive hobby dressed up as a business. And we see it so often that because the business owner and because the photographer, who typically is the business owner, doesn't want to understand the numbers or put some time in to understand them and put a system in place that works, they just keep rowing and rowing and rowing, and often they just get beached, right? So their boat gets beached. And sometimes you can rescue a boat when it gets beached, but more often or not, they hit a rock and they hit that rock, it takes on water. And we all know a boat that takes on water, it sinks, right? So that's the reality of it. That's how important knowing your numbers is. And that's why I love what we do at the Difference Maker Revolution. Because you're not dealing with one coach and mentor. You have four, all individual experts in their area, all who can bring you all the skills that you need to run your business. But often the photographers that we see, they tend to ignore the most important thing. And that's why in the AI coach, in the foundation, we have three modules. You have your brand foundation, which is about knowing your purpose and your why. We have your ideal client avatar about understanding what the person you want to serve, what do they secretly want? Because that's when your work becomes priceless. And then we have the camera business success plan, which is about understanding where do you want to go and working out how you're going to get there and translating that journey into numbers that you can measure. Not just yearly, waiting for your accountant to tell you whether you made a profit or not. Not quarterly, not monthly, but it can bring it down to a daily rate.
- [03:58]
B
I think like most small businesses, or, sorry, most people who want to get into a small business, they have a hobby that they're passionate about and they really love doing something and they're kind of like, you know, how can I, like, make some money out of this so I can do my hobby right? And I think like most, when you look at most photographers, most of them coming into the industry, that's how they start, right? They have a hobby to have an interest. And like, how can I make some cash, like out of this hobby? And it's just not in their awareness yet of what you actually need. Because for me, anytime I look at an opportunity, the first thing I do once I have an idea is I run the numbers. It's the first thing I do. I pull up Google sheets and I look at, okay, what's the likely cost per acquisition for getting clients? What's the profit margins, potential, all of the key kind of profit first numbers, the revenue, the average order, everything. The costs of implementing this, what are my actual costs to implement this? And look at margin and say, is this worth time? And I'll look at things like, is this scalable? Can this work? And I didn't always see this. I had to bring this into my awareness. But now in 2026, even from 2025 when I started it, that's my core focus. When I decide, is this a business potential or not? And it's a big. Unless you become aware of it, like you have to learn this, or unless you're an insanely talented business person, you're still going to pick it up from somewhere. Right? So I think that's a core difference, is that we get into something we love, we see an opportunity for something, but we don't actually run the. Because economics is a real thing. Economics runs the world. We can't ignore economics or math. And nothing beats economics and math. And we have to be aware of those things.
- [05:42]
A
We could have a good argument over economics, Jonathan. So I won't go there though, because it's too important and we stay on track. I don't think economics runs the world. I think it ruins the world. But we won't go there now. So Janine could like, where are you on this? Could you run your business without being on top of your numbers, without implementing profit first and knowing where the money is going, where it's coming from, how many clients you need to serve? Where would you be in your business without, as the captain of the ship, knowing what those numbers are, knowing what the targets are and knowing then what actions you take to make those numbers happen?
- [06:20]
D
Yeah, well, I would not be where I am right now, that's for sure. But I can, you know, backing it up a step. I remember making that transition in thought when I started off the studio. I was lucky. I was in Atlanta at the time. And so I had actually taken. I took some pretty hardcore business classes through PPA back then. Like Am on Teeth was teaching them and it was. And Scott Kirky and Right. And it was like hardcore, know your numbers. And so I was coming from corporate world, right? So I came from corporate America. And I wanted to learn the numbers in the photography business. So I took those courses before I even opened the studio. Studio. But I gotta say this, I still ran for the longest time. And you'll know exactly Ronan, when I made that change, I ran. The more I sell, the more I'll make. The more I'll sell, the more I'll make. And I was a hundred percent sale focused. That was it. And I just, if I have money, I'm doing great. And I, you know, I would look at my bank accounts and just see, you know, that's how I tracked it back then. I did want to have like everything that we had learned in those business courses. I wanted to make sure was running right. I wanted to have the right profit margin. Margin, you know, I wanted to make sure my cost of goods were where they needed to be according to the standards, and I wanted to sell at a profit. But I was just happy if I sold more, I'd make more. And I ran like that for a long time until I met and, you know, the person I met and that was Mike Michalowicz, and totally turned on my head and. God, how long ago Was that now? 10 years. It's been 10 years. I think the concept of figuring out your profit first. And since then, it's become an obsessive thing. Like, I keep my own running spreadsheet along in addition to what my accountant gives my. You know. Because your accountant gives you like a monthly P and L. What is that? I mean. I mean, I know we have an accountant amongst us right here, and so he's going to be like, your P and L is everything, but it's more like I. I keep a. A spreadsheet that I update every two weeks with all my profit first numbers. And so it's. It's an obsessive thing for me.
- [08:25]
A
I just need to back you up just for a second, Janine. So I would argue that your P and L is nothing. It's only one piece of the jigsaw and means absolutely nothing. So I have seen companies where. And businesses where their P and L is shown they're making a profit and they go bust because they have no cash. So it's only one piece of the jigsaw. And that's why I love profit first, because it's based on the cash flowing through the business. It's based on that cash as it comes in. You know exactly what cash you have, and you're putting it into its various buckets of profit. Your profit account, your owner's pay account, your tax account to pay your tax bill at the end of the year so you're not running around the place wondering where you're going to get the money to pay your tax bill and then your operational expenses. So that's why I love it. You don't need to be an accountant to operate it. To be honest. Like, I know Steve's qualified as an accountant. I started to qualify as an accountant. I said, this makes no sense. It absolutely makes no sense. And like, I know my way around balance sheets. I know my way around cash flow statements. I know my way around P and L is because I had to learn that. But it still is not. Does not make common sense. Well, profit first makes common sense, and it doesn't replace what your accountant does view, but it puts you in control of your business. It puts you in control of knowing what direction your business is going based on how the cash is flowing through the business.
- [09:40]
D
Well, the other big bucket number two, Ronan. And I know Steve's going to jump in here on what you just said, but for me, it's not just the numbers every day, the cash flowing through your business, it's the reserves. To me, that was the biggest thing to get under control. Especially, like, and I'm so glad I did, because I learned this way before COVID hit. And now I'm like, I get nervous. If I have, like, it was back then, I had six months. Now I have a year. And if I see that number float below a year, I start to get, like, twitchy. And now it's interesting because we see and we talk, and I know this is what inspired you for this podcast topic. When your business gets to a point that it's in desperation and you've run through your cash reserves, you start making desperate choices, and you start making decisions in your business that are not based upon logic. They're based upon panic and fear. And it's a bad place to be, and you should never get there.
- [10:30]
A
It's a very difficult place to be. Janine and Steve will talk to that. You know, because your clients, Steve, teaches us all, you know, they get their energy from your energy. And if you're in that position, it's really, really hard to have the energy for a client. Right, Steve?
- [10:44]
C
Yeah. And you see it all the time where, you know, people are in that position and they struggle to book because the clients hear the desperation. They're getting rejected on price because they're desperate to book somebody for the money, and then the conversation ends up being transactional. They can hear that, and it just doesn't help at all. And to be, and, you know, the accountant in the room, I'm already being singled out as the accountant in the room. My family's always been in business, and I knew that I wanted to run my own business at some point, and I only learned accounting and did an accounting degree because I believed I needed that foundation before I could even begin to think about running a business. I went and got an accounting accounting degree because I wanted to understand the numbers. And, you know, although my parents were quite successful in their business, the one thing that they always stressed to me was that, you know, we did this without the same education that you have and have the opportunity to have. And so it really is important to get that foundation because it'll make a massive difference to the decisions that you make in your business.
- [11:48]
B
So.
- [11:50]
C
I've, I've always run business by numbers because it sends you the warnings that sometimes emotionally you're not ready to hear. So, you know, running even my day to day booking conversion sheet that would be checked daily and the shifts in the conversion sheet, you know, when your conversions drop, there's something happening and that has an effect usually two to three weeks after today. So if my conversions are down today, that's going to affect me usually in two weeks time. So we do have time to pick it up. But that is something that I would monitor daily because I've still got two weeks to make it up. But if, if I wait until the end of the month to see whether I've made a profit, it's too late. And it means that you can make micro adjustments if you're on top of your numbers on a regular basis and just keep it simple to the smaller things so then that way you're not suddenly having to go into much easier to make the micro adjustments.
- [12:48]
A
Janine, I have a question for you. So my question is, you know, we can have people who are in our businesses who create the numbers, right? And there's a difference between creating the numbers and interpretation of the numbers, right? And I think it's, it's a really important distinguishing factor, right, that as a business owner you have to be able to interpret the numbers and understand what they're telling you. And I don't believe you can outsource that to anybody else. The interpretation, you can outsource the production of the numbers, but the interpretation of those numbers should always be down to the business.
- [13:26]
D
So same thing. Like I would not outsource my marketing either. That's something that I like to maintain control of. I, as you guys know and anybody listening to the podcast, I prefer to outsource my, to hire a photographer first, right. So that way I could focus on the growth of the business and the managing of the business and the marketing. So I interpret my own numbers. But I will say that I do use help. You know, I phone a friend, I have mentors, you know, they're, they're on this podcast with me. And so sometimes if something doesn't make sense or like it's really hard to operate a business in a vacuum, you know, and so when you, you, you know that you're, let's just say, you know that you convert, I'm gonna throw out random number. Let's say, you know, you convert 40% of your lead, your potential clients into clients, and then for a few weeks, now, all of a sudden, you're only converting at 20%. You know something's up, you know something is going on, but you might not know why. And it takes. Sometimes it takes talking it out loud with yourself, with your team, and maybe a mentor or maybe an accountability partner, or maybe someone in a community group to be like, hey, this could be what's going on. You know, sometimes it's hard to see yourself. It's hard to see the force from the trees. Sometimes when you're looking at it. Cause you're so close to it. Uh, what's changed? What could be happening? What's changed on the phone? Has anything changed in your marketing? Has anything, you know, is there something going on in the world that you might not have realized? You know, like, I mean, there's so many factors, but if you're not on top of it. And I think what we see is so often people, they ignore it until it's like at the end of a month or at the end of two months, at the end of three months. And they're like, shoot, I should have.
- [15:06]
C
Done something about this months ago.
- [15:07]
D
I should have done something about this. So, yes, I do believe you have to be the one as the business owner. But I think it's totally fine to phone a friend and to ask for help. And to ask for help when you, like when you first notice something and not waiting until it becomes a crisis, you gotta be.
- [15:25]
B
Force yourself to be aware because it's like getting fat, right? You know, you're eating the food, right, and you look at the scales like a month later and you're like, where did that extra like 10 pounds come from? 5 kg I'm eating normally.
- [15:37]
A
No way.
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B
And then when you actually make yourself aware and they're like, well, maybe I did eat that, that cream egg. Maybe I did eat that other thing. Maybe I did eat those six extra slices of bread. Oops. But you ignore it when you're doing it because you don't want to be where to treat, right?
- [15:55]
C
But you gotta want to also take an interest and you know, taking an interest in the numbers. And you gotta want to learn. It's part of the business. You've gotta want to learn what those numbers mean. And you spot on, Ronan. A lot of the times, you know, there's all these numbers, but we've often asked people to collate numbers and fill out forms, and they fill them out and stick them on the desk. They've ticked the box, but they don't go back and look at the trends. And so it's important to actually look at them and look at the trends. What is it. What is it actually saying to you? Are you becoming more efficient? Are your. Your averages increasing? Whether that's conversion rates, whether that's sales. Sales. And so often, too, you know, we mentor people all the time, and you'll get people saying, oh, my God, I've done a $5,000 sale. It's so awesome. And then you'll ask them, well, did. Was it paid in full? Oh, no, no. The money's coming. That's not a sale. Right. Sometimes there's no deposit, and they're still telling you they've done a $5,000 sale. Sometimes, you know, they may be taking $150 or $200. That is not a $5,000 sale. But in their heads, you know, they'll want to believe that they've made a $5,000 sale. Cash is king. And without that cash flow, and I don't know what it's like in other countries, I became very aware of it. But when GST came in, if you're making a sale and you're taking that $150 deposit. 500. I've got to pay tax on 5 GST on $500 for that. You know, the GST is 500 bucks, 10%. So you're out of pocket because you got to pay it when the sale's made.
- [17:41]
A
So just for everyone else, GST is VAT if you're in Europe, or it's sales tax if you're in the US So now that has to be paid on time, regardless of whether you've collected the cash.
- [17:53]
C
Yeah. So it's paid on the sale. So, you know, when we're thinking about the sales, it's not just about the sale. And knowing your numbers is what I why I love all the tools that we've built. Helping people work out their pricing, helping people understand what the price they should be charging. Because, you know, I've worked with some people, and they'll tell me, oh, you know, I did this incredible sale. It was a $4,000 sale. And when you look at what they gave the client, I'm thinking, there's no profit like you. You've given everything away. And that sometimes it's costing more to service that sale than what it. You know. And so it's really important to know how to price. And that's why it's so incredible to have all of these tools for all of our members. Because it does help with knowing what the minimum sales price needs to be and that it factors in your confidence and it just helps people know that when they make a sale, if they stick to, stick to what we've given you, you'll come up with the right pricing, which will then end up with profit. That doesn't solve though, knowing how much to put away for tax, that part of it. And that, you know, that's the other piece of the puzzle that, you know, we have that bolted onto with profit.
- [19:09]
D
First for the rainy day fund or.
- [19:12]
C
The rainy day fund, Ronan.
- [19:13]
D
So let me ask you this. Like, I know we've talked a lot about how we know everybody flies blind and they need to take that blindfold off and take control of their businesses. What, what, what answers do you have for people listening? Like what would you tell them they need to, what is the core? Like what do they need to pay attention to and how, like, what is the best practice for them?
- [19:33]
A
I think, I think, and Steve hinted this, I think you got to know what the important numbers are, right? Because, because often you see people focused on certain numbers which are only a part of the picture. Right. For me, you've got to know in profit first terminology what your real revenue is. So what's your real revenue as your sales less your cost of goods. Right. You can call it added value margin. An accountant for a services business might call it your gross profit. I don't like the word gross profit because it confuses people and they think that's the profit. It's not. The profit's what's left over when everyone else is got paid. That's why I like, you know, the accountants understand that, but many non accountants get confused. Then they think that their gross profit is what the profit they actually made in the business. And the profit you make in your business is what's left after you've paid everybody, including yourself and your tax bill and all of your staff and all of your expenses. That's what profit really is. And profit first. We put that ahead of all the other things, but we won't go there. We don't have time on this podcast to go there. But Janine, the key thing for me is understanding what you need your real revenue to be every month to cover paying yourself to cover all of your operation expenses. Because I hear people saying I had a sales month, you know, but they have no idea whether they made money on 60,000 or not or they're 20,000 sales month. They have no idea whether they made money or lost money on that. Right. So you gotta know, you've gotta know what that break even real revenue is every single month. And then you need to measure at least weekly.
- [21:10]
C
Yeah.
- [21:10]
A
And you can for most photography businesses measure it daily. You know, so it's, it's, it's, it's a critical thing. And I see, I think our industry has done a terrible job and I know the reason why some coaches do it, but they've done a terrible job at attaching photographers ego to one big sale. No, we see it, we see groups celebrating that you can only be in this group if you have a sale over a certain amount. Not many sales over a certain amount. One sale over a certain amount. That is absolutely doing a total disservice to our industry, to photographers everywhere, because they then believe that that's success and it's not success. I've seen so many photographers fail chasing one big sale and it's the only sale they have in a quarter or even a year because their ego and their success was attached to a big sale. So, and we've talked about this many times, Janine, you know, like you know, you ten thousand sale versus twenty, fifteen hundred dollar sales. Right. Is a better business. Is probably a better business. Right. Not guaranteed, but it's probably a better business. But I can tell you that if you have one sale a year at 10,000, you're not in business, you have an expensive hobby.
- [22:27]
B
Holy smokes.
- [22:31]
C
He's on fire. He's on fire. But that whole concept of paying yourself so many times when people first start, the one thing they'll say is, you know, I haven't paid myself or I haven't, I haven't paid myself for six months, eight months, two years, three years. This whole concept of paying yourself, I think you need to explain a little bit more about that because you know, you're in business, you do the sales and you buy your toys and whatever's left is my pay. And that's what I think most people, how a lot of people operate, it just doesn't work like that.
- [23:06]
A
Well, you won't be sustainable if you operate like that. You know, it's, it's, it's just, it doesn't matter if you're living week to week, month to month, right. In your business. Right. And because I was there in the past, right, when a tsunami hits, that often is outside your control, right. It can go south very, very, very, very, very quickly. So you know, I've been there. I had a business in 2009 when we had the Great Recession in Ireland, and that business hadn't built the cash buffers Janine talked about to get through things like she had for Covid. And that business went from, you know, covering its bills every month to losing 50,000amonth. Right. You can't do that for very, very long. Right? So that ship sunk. That ship sunk with 45 people on board. Right. And that were working in that business. So everything that we teach and why I am so passionate about this is I was there. I don't want anyone else to be there, you know, and we're trying to bring you the tools and the education and the help and the support and the mentorship and the coaching so you don't end up there because it's not a nice place to be.
- [24:18]
B
It's funny, you talk about that experience in 2009 and I remember how, like, you were in a deep depression after it, understandably, because it was your baby, right? But like, I remember you telling me once that some of the smartest organizations in the world, their board of directors, they actually won't appoint someone to the board unless they've had a failure, at least one failure. It's not about being afraid of failure either, but it's about learning from it. And I think one of the keys you've got to take on board the listeners here is that a lot of these lessons have come from real life experiences and they've come from really painful real life experiences. And that is more invaluable than any theory in any course or coaching you'll ever experience.
- [25:03]
A
Yeah, it is. You know, it's. It's like profit first. When I came across the first. I know you've talked to a lot about it people. We've had a ton of prophet first. But like, when I. When I read that book and I came across Mike McAnowicz and then I loved it so much, I became a proffers professional, right? So, so, but why I loved it so much is you don't have to be an accountant to implement it, right? For anybody can do it. It's a really simple system. It takes a little bit of time to get it set up, but once it's set up, the information you get like, I have a financial controller in our businesses, right? And I annoy her because she says, how do you think we did this month? And I'm so close, just because I can see how the cash has flown through the business and profit first, right? And so it's just a vital thing to know if you don't know. It's like this, right? You can have the best camera on the planet, you can have the best lighting on the planet and you can have a client coming in who you know is going to be an amazing client, who you're going to serve today. If all your batteries are flat, what sort of day you going to have? So your financial system that you put in your business is the battery for the business. It's the way you charge it. And too often I see it like, if your phone goes to 3% charge, right, do you open up all the apps on your phone if you've no charger with you? No. You shut everything down to try and preserve it, right? But too often, too often in business, you see. You see photographers turning on all the apps, right, when they really need to turn off some of the apps. And that reminds me of something, right? What is a business, right? I see this over and over and over again where people in our industry measure the definition of a business based on the number of people that they hire and employ. That's not a business. That's not a business. That's your business, right? Your business is based on what it delivers you for yourself as the business owner, right? And what it delivers for the future, the future that you want to create in financial stability, right, by delivering for your client. And the number of people you have, right? Does not define the business, does not define whether you're in business or not. I see people who are solopreneurs make more money than a photographer who's got five staff. I've seen it. I've seen. Seen it even in bigger businesses. I've seen it in our business where I compare what we create compared to businesses that are five times our size, right? And the businesses are five times our size based on revenue and sales. Don't make any money. Zero. Why would you bother? Why would you bother? Go get a job somewhere. Go get a job. Because it's not easy being in business. It's great fun, right, when you do it, right? But there's always the challenges there, right? And it does bring certain freedoms to you, right? And gives you control of your time, which you love, Janine, right? But you can only have continuous control of your time if your business delivers you the income, first of all the profit and then the financial reserves that Janine talked about, right? You would not operate your studio one battery, would you?
- [28:30]
B
Wisely he inadvertently. I know the time. I'm conscious of the time. But he inadvertently set us up for potentially the next podcast episode, which I'm excited about. But, yeah. Any final closing thoughts from anyone? Or will we tell people how they can easily get to know their business? Numbers?
- [28:47]
C
Tell everyone. Go, Jono.
- [28:49]
D
Fun with numbers. You gotta rephrase it, right? It's not scary, it's fun. Fun with numbers.
- [28:54]
A
It's fun. You gotta change your mindset to it, right? Mindset, as Steve teaches us all, is everything. So you've got to look at your numbers and say, you know, I can have fun with these. And when you do learn them, it is fun. It is fun. And it's an early warning system. It's far better than, you know. You know, when you hear of people where they're struggling with money and the bills come in the posts and they choose to ignore them because they know they don't have the money and they can't deal with the emotional pain of opening the bills and seeing how much they. Oh, right, you don't want to be there. That is not fun. Fun is making sure you never end up there. So what you need to do is join the inner circle because you have this mentor team and all the tools and kcb, our AI coach, to help you, to help you with all of this. Right. And implement it and create the business of your dreams while making sure that you're creating the financial stability for yourself today, tomorrow, and for your future.
- [29:54]
B
That was a hot one. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.
- [29:57]
D
Thank you, guys.