Anami Tonkin (0:00)

Have you ever heard that old riddle about whether you would rather have a million dollars given you today or a penny today and then have that penny doubled every day for a month? So a penny today, two pennies tomorrow, four pennies the day after for 30 days. The reason that it's a riddle is that the answer seems obvious, right? A million dollars sounds amazing, but if you do the math, you take that penny and you let it double for 30 days, you actually end up with over $5 million. The point is, small actions, when repeated consistently, add up in ways that aren't obvious at first. And yet, when it comes to marketing, a lot of us, a lot of us who know better, are guilty of doing the exact opposite. We wake up one day, look at the calendar, and realize, oh, I gotta. I gotta get going. And we spring into action. We flood Instagram with posts and stories. We send, you know, two emails in a week after being silent for six months, maybe even, you know, sitting down and writing a few blog posts. But that kind of all or nothing strategy is rooted in the fantasy that this time we'll strike gold. That this email, this post, this discount, this is going to be the lottery ticket that turns everything around overnight. But just like the lottery, that kind of panic fueled reactive marketing rarely leads anywhere, at least not as fast as we want it to. It creates mountains of work and even bigger mountains of stress. But we don't really learn our lesson very often, right? As soon as the calendar does start to fill, we kind of breathe this sigh of relief and promptly go back to our marketing head in the sand hibernation until the next slow season hits and the cycle starts all over again. Today, I want to suggest a different approach. It's not flashy, it's not dramatic, and it's probably not going to create instant results. In fact, it works best when it feels kind of boring. But if you're ready to step off the feast or famine rollercoaster and into something more predictable, more sustainable, and honestly, more effective, then this is the episode for you. Welcome to this Can't Be that Hard. My name is Anami Tonkin, and I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it. And I can show you how. Shortly after my divorce, I sat down with a financial advisor for the first time, and I was nervous. But in no way prepared for the direness of his predictions about my long term financial viability. They were unsettling to say the least. So he ran those Monte Carlo projections that are based on how much money I'm making, how much money I'm spending, all that sort of stuff. And he told me that if I kept going the way that I was, I wouldn't be able to retire until I was 80 and that I would likely die, you know, shortly thereafter with zero net worth, which, as you can imagine, single mom, et cetera, et cetera, scared me half to death. As we combed through my expenses, he kept suggesting that I, you know, cut this, trim that from things that already felt bare bones. I, you know, wanted to scream like you can't get water from a rock. And then at the end of that conversation, he said, all right, now it's time to talk about saving for retirement. And if I hadn't laughed, I'm pretty sure I would have cried. The whole concept felt absurd. He was suggesting that, you know, I pick a number, even a small number, and set it to automatically draft each month. But the idea of voluntarily shaving money off of this very small pile every month felt impossible. But he was pretty insistent. He said, even if it's just $10 a month, I want you to start now. Because what you're doing isn't just saving money, you're also building a habit. And habits like money do tend to compound over time. So given that he had done a pretty good job scaring the pants off of me, I took his advice. I made those contributions a non negotiable part of my budget, even when it meant sacrificing other things. And honestly, that decision changed the way that I think about long term growth. Not just in finances, but in all kinds of areas of life. And the truth is it applies to marketing as well. So let's take a look at how this plays out in our business. You might feel like you are putting in a lot of effort with very little return. You show up on social, you email your list, you improve your client experience, all the different things. But results from marketing rarely show up the moment that you hit post or send. Right? It's one of those where you plant the seeds now and you get to pick the fruit later. Just like with your retirement account. The real magic is in the compounding. One blog post won't change your life, but 50, it starts to build traffic and trust. One great client experience might earn you a kind testimonial or even a referral. But 10 great experiences really creates that referral pipeline. These things tend to snowball, but they can't snowball. If you try something, feel like it didn't work, and walk away. You have to stay in the game. You have to keep feeding the effort. In the financial world, when the market dips, investors are told, don't panic, don't pull your money out right, don't look at the stock market. You need to stay the course. And the same goes for your marketing. If your inquiries are slow, it's tempting to do something drastic. Lower your prices, offer some big flash sale, or overhaul your entire strategy. But unless you have a really good reason to believe that one of those things is the ultimate answer, what happens is those efforts come across as desperate and desperation repels clients. Those short term fixes, as well intentioned as they may be, can actually hurt your brand in the long term. On the other hand, having a marketing system, something that you do consistently, kind of regardless of how busy you are, how slow you are, how you're feeling that day, it's just on your calendar and you stick to it. That system helps you ride those waves without spiraling. You don't have to show up every single day. You don't have to show up even every single week. But you do have to show up regularly. The photographers who get steady leads are the ones who keep investing the small, consistent amounts of time, energy and intention month after month, year after year. That might mean sending a couple of emails every month. It might mean posting, you know, three or four times a week on social media. It also can mean things like setting it on your calendar to reach out to one past client every Friday with an email or like a personal note in the mail. It doesn't have to be fancy, it doesn't have to be expensive. It just has to be consistent. And this is a short episode. This probably isn't blowing your mind wide open. I figure we're probably all in the middle of a little bit of a slow season. So I wanted to time this to remind you to get back to it, right? And to kind of drive that point home. I wanted to finish the story several years later, after that meeting with my financial advisor, that same retirement account that I started back in 20, I guess it was 2018, with those laughably small monthly contributions, I got started with that. And then every time that my income increased, every time that I felt, you know, like, oh, I have a little bit of a windfall, I would shovel some extra money in there. It had become a habit. And now, less than 10 years later, I am on track to retire comfortably at 60, not 80, but 60, and to actually have some money left over that I can pass on to my children in the future. Now, that's not because I got some sort of windfall, and it's not because I made some sort of brilliant investment. The only thing that I can really attribute that to is the fact that I created a habit. I promised myself that I was going to stick with it and. And I let time do its thing. Marketing works the same way. You may not feel the impact right this minute. You might not feel it next week or even next month. But if you stay the course, if you keep showing up, you will build something reliable, something you can count on and something that supports you even when things around you get rocky. So keep making your deposits even when things feel small, even when you feel invisible. Because. Because over time, those efforts add up. And photography is a game that is so worth staying in. You guys have a great week. That's it for this week's episode of this Can't Be that Hard. I'll be back same time, same place next week. If you like the show, be sure to check out thiscan'tbethard.com to explore all the resources we have for photographers. And of course, it would mean the world to me if you would leave a review of the show on itunes or Spotify. As always, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week.