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A while back, as we were mapping out the podcast schedule for the upcoming months, I noticed something kind of fun, which is that our 350th episode was just going to happen to coincide with the first episode of the year. So here we are, happy 350th episode and happy New Year. But as I started to kind of think about that and think about, oh, that's a fun coincidence, I noticed that that was not the only coincidence. We've got this whole little cluster of milestones that's happening around here right now. Number one, we are days away from the six year anniversary of the original launch of Simple Sales, which is how this can't be that hard started way back when in 2020. And we're just a couple of weeks away from the six year anniversary of the podcast, which launched after I finished the launch of the course. We're also celebrating the fact, and this is kind of a big one, that we just crossed the half million downloads mark for the podcast, which is completely mind blowing. So thank you so much to all of you who tune in regularly and have been coming back, many of you, for years. So between the new year and all these milestones, you know, this episode felt like it had some sort of superpower. It felt like it should represent something significant. And I'll be honest, for a couple of days there, I was like, oh, is this the universe telling me that it's time to like wrap up the podcast and, you know, 350 episodes, it seems like a nice round number. But here's the thing, right? Even after all this time, even after all these episodes, I regularly hear from people who have just found the podcast and they're so excited and enthusiastic about it. I also hear from longtime listeners who've been tuning in for years. And honestly, that is the very best kind of compliment. So instead of relying on the universe to tell me how to run my business, I decided to ask myself, do I feel like I have said all that I came to say when I started way back in February of 2020? And even though when I first started, if you had asked me, are you going to make it to 50 episodes? I would have doubted it, right? I didn't know, like, how much could I possibly have to say on the subject of running a photography business? I rem that 50th episode coming and going and being like, wow, this is crazy. Same thing with a hundred episodes and 200 episodes. So the episode number doesn't really matter so much as it is whether there is still a mission to accomplish. And the answer is that, yes, there is a mission to accomplish. There are photographers who still need support and encouragement as they run their businesses and set up businesses to run well for them. But just because we're not closing the podcast down doesn't mean that this isn't a major milestone, and not just because of the numbers. I decided that at 350 episodes, it may not be the end, but it is a new beginning. And today I want to tell you all about how things are changing around here. Welcome to this Can't Be that Hard. My name is Annemie 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. So after making the decision that I wanted to shake things up with the podcast, I called Dana and I said, I want to schedule a day where we sit down and do, like, a big, long brainstorming and planning session. So when we had that meeting, the first thing that we did was the thing that I tell everyone to do, certainly all photographers to do when they're feeling stuck or confused or trying to figure out what it is that they should do next. And that is to go back to the beginning. Go back and check in with your why. Right? So that was the first thing we did. We went back to the mission of this can't be that Hard. My why? Why? I started this podcast in the first place, and you hear it at the beginning of every episode. If you didn't fast forward through it, you just heard it in the intro a second ago, right? The tagline that I created back in 2020 really says it all. I am here to help photographers build profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Six years after I wrote that tagline, I still believe deeply in that mission, and I don't really feel like I need to change a single word, despite the fact that, you know, a lot of other things have changed. So although my why hasn't changed, the truth is that the how has. Right? The context has changed. The industry has changed, the world has changed. When I started, certainly when I started my business, but then even when I started in the education world, there was so little business education that was geared toward photographers anywhere, Right? It just wasn't available. Nowadays, we have kind of the opposite problem, right? There are so many resources. There has been this huge proliferation of Online educators and podcasts, certainly, but YouTube channels, all these different things, right? And it can be hard to figure out who to listen to. An information overload may seem like a good problem to have, but it's is its own problem, right? It can still be a barrier to making headway. So as Dana and I talked about these shifts in the industry, we realized that where we needed to make a change was around how we were delivering that information. So I love podcasts. I love listening to them, I love recording them. But they really do have this one big flaw, at least when it comes to, to business podcasts. And that is the fact that they're really built to be kind of a passive experience, right? You are just listening. And listening is great, learning is great. Getting new information and hearing new perspectives, all of that is great. But that kind of, you know, absorption, it really isn't enough. You can binge all 350 episodes of this podcast, which I added up the time, and it would take you more than a week, even if you were listening 24 hours a day. So you could binge all of those episodes and not see a single change in your business. But if you were to listen to one episode and take action on it, that might move the needle in a massive way, right? It could make all the difference. So action is the new focus here. We're keeping the podcast. We're not moving away from the audio format, but we are taking steps to give you more, to make it less listen and learn and more learn and implement. So I want you to start thinking about this show as your weekly business workout. It's like you're going to your personal training session, right? And you're not showing up to spectate. This is not a spectator sport. This is a participation process. And I am going to do everything I can as your trainer to coach you and help you do the work to strengthen your business. Now, the first step that I'm taking in that direction is actually about me. It's working on myself and my teaching style as a coach, as a trainer, right? And this may not be something that you even notice or see in every episode, but it really is a big mindset shift for me. And quite honestly, it's a little bit outside my comfort zone. I'm not sure that my kids would agree, but generally speaking in the world, I don't like telling other people what to do most of the time. Rather than saying, you know, this is how you should market your business, or this is how you should price your services, I tend to offer examples or Strategies that have worked for me, for other people. I try to make those as honest and accurate and transparent as possible. I do not, you know, do the thing that some people do where they're promising these huge results or anything else. I really try to make it practical, tangible, and honest. But I also tend to give you that information and then back off and let you decide whether those are the correct steps for you. Because I have always been a big champion of and appreciator of the creative freedom that comes with running a business. Right. As entrepreneurs, I feel like that's one of the best things about what we do, is that we get to be our own bosses. I also know that there's not just one path to success. I don't believe that it's, you know, my way or the highway that you can't do a different thing and also be successful. And of course, there are many different definitions of success. You might be chasing six figures. Another person might just want to a successful side hustle that brings in, you know, enough money to go on vacation each year. There's all kinds of different ways to run a business. And. And I have never wanted to kind of jump in and be like, this is how you should do things. However, over the last six years, I have also seen a lot of businesses and business owners struggle. And sometimes I wonder whether I have done our community a bit of a disservice. Not by telling people what to do. I mean, I still will never be the person who's like, you have to do it this way. It's not the way that I operate. But, you know, maybe I need to stand a little more confidently behind what I know works and speak up when I see someone doing something that I know probably won't work. In the beginning of my education career, I think taking a more passive approach was probably the right thing to do. Right. I see a lot of people who are not only brand new educators, but brand new to business, in effect. You know, maybe they've been photographers for a couple of years. They get excited by the idea of stepping into that education space and all of a sudden they're this like, expert that knows everything because of who they are or who taught them or whatever. They're unafraid of sort of owning that. I don't think that's the right thing to do. I think that it was probably the right thing for me. It was fair of me to err on the side of not overselling my own ideas and methods. But again, over the past six years as an educator and certainly over the 16 years that I've been in photography, I have learned a lot in my own business and in looking around and seeing the results of the bad information. And some of the fly by night programs that are out there that have really exploded in the last five to 10 years, right. That has grown exponentially and it has kind of left a path of destruction in its wake. So again, I'm not going to become some sort of know it all who, like, if you don't sign on with me, then you don't know what you're doing and you're going to fail. I don't believe that for a second. But my personal commitment to you is that I am going to be more direct, more transparent, not rude, not harsh, just a little more forthright about what I see working and the things that I know can and too often do go wrong. The next big changes have to do with the podcast itself. So this is the stuff that I think you're going to see and feel and hopefully be really excited about because we certainly are. So number one, we are changing up our programming plan. I have always, for six whole years, just kind of done, I don't want to call them random, but kind of random episodes on any and all business related topics that seem pertinent to the community. Right. The only real pattern that we've ever stuck with was that we typically toggle between solo episodes and interviews. You know, one this week, the next, the next, and back and forth. Right now we are going to start taking a more intentional approach to planning the year. What we did was we opened up a calendar and we mapped out a year in the life of a typical working photographer where we identified what most photographers are focused on during any given season. Now, of course, there is variety to this. It's not everybody is not on the same schedule. Weather is different in different places, different niches, serve, you know, have different peaks and all that sort of stuff. But we tried to do something that was going to help the most people and in real time. And of course, the beauty of a podcast is you can always go back and listen to something later that is apropos to your business at that moment. But what we're doing is we are matching our content plan to those areas of focus that sort of the majority of photographers might be focused on during a given time. And based on that, we divided the year up into various themes. So our themes, they're not. It's not like January is such and such month and February is such and such month. It's going to vary a bit in terms of length. But most of our themes are going to last three to five weeks. And during those three to five weeks, you'll get several different kinds of episodes that are all focused on that theme, sort of approaching that theme from different perspectives. So you might hear a solo episode, you might hear a couple of interviews. There might be like a profile of a photographer or a student or something like that. And we've got some other fun ideas that I think are going to shake things up a little bit. What we want is for you to think about this as kind of a syllabus for your business year. And instead of making it a surprise syllabus, we've never announced our podcast topics ahead of time other than, you know, we'll post on social media on Monday about what Tuesday's episode is about. But instead of making this year a surprise, what we are doing is we're actually releasing the entire plan to you now so that you can not only get a sense of what's to come, make sure that you pencil in the things that are particularly relevant to you, but we want you to weigh in. We want to invite you to participate more, not just, again, as a spectator in the spectator sport, but really diving in and letting us know what your ideas are about, who we should interview, what issues we should tackle. You know, you can submit questions that you want to hear the answers to during that month's theme or that, you know, several weeks theme and more. I want this podcast to feel less like a monologue and more like a dialogue. And I want to make it as practical and applicable to you and your business as possible. I've always created this podcast for you. But in the spirit of coaching and accountability and sort of partnering going forward, I really want to create this podcast with you, which brings me to the most exciting change that we are making around here. Starting today, I want to invite you to join us in the Darkroom, which is a brand new, completely free companion app that we have built for our podcast listeners. As you know, a literal darkroom is where we as photographers go to develop film into prints. And this darkroom is sort of a community space that is designed to help us develop ideas and inspiration into action and results. So let's talk a little bit about what's inside the darkroom first. You'll be able to look through that podcast syllabus that I just told you about, right? All the themes that we are planning to explore over the course of the year. And of course, as I said, you're not just Looking, you are actually jumping in and guiding. And in the darkroom, you'll be able to submit your recommendations. You'll be able to submit questions and ideas that even though we know what the theme is, we haven't necessarily invited the people that we're going to interview. We haven't necessarily decided exactly what topics we're going to be talking about during that theme. Your questions and ideas and recommendations are going to be the determining factor for our content plan each and every week. The darkroom will also be where you can log in and get action plans that are based around each theme. And we've got some really fun ideas to reward the action takers out there with prizes and special perks that are only going to be available inside the darkroom. Finally, the darkroom is going to be a quick and easy way for you to get the most out of this vast archive of material that we have. We have built a very comprehensive search feature so that you can look for topics that are pertinent to you. You can look for, you know, if you know that you heard an interview with so and so three years ago, but you have no idea what number it is, and you really don't want to scroll through Spotify to figure it out, this is going to be a super easy way for you to pinpoint exactly what that episode was. You can search even down to the level of the transcription. So if you're like, I know that she once talked about xyz, and you can search for that and find all of the podcast episodes that ever reference that particular topic. So it's a really powerful search function that's much more useful than trying to Google for it or even search our website for it. We have also started building out and we're going to continue to add more of these ways for you to take little quizzes and get personalized podcast playlist recommendations so that you can dive deeper on the topics that are relevant to you. I mean, what is the purpose of having all of this content if you can't mine it for what's useful to you? Right? So I am super, super excited about the darkroom. I think it's going to be an amazing addition to the podcast that's going to help you build that profitable, sustainable business that you love. And honestly, this is really just the beginning. I have so many fun ideas for this that I haven't yet had the time to implement, but I can't wait to start building out. And I will be obviously keeping you posted on that as soon as those changes go live. So your action plan, your mission this week, should you choose to accept it, is to go to this can't. Bethard.com darkroom Sign up for your free account and then log in and poke around. Right now, this is super simple. It's going to be a very. It's going to continue to be a simple, easy, free way for you to build your business. But right now, it is a great way to start the year off on the right foot again. Not just by passively listening to the podcast, but by taking those small, meaningful actions week after week to build your business. Signing up doesn't mean that you have to participate every week or with every theme. But I can promise that if you commit to regularly tuning in and following the small but meaningful action steps that we give you this year, your business will grow, you will make more money, and you will feel less overwhelmed and alone, starting with our first theme, which kicks off next week. And if you're excited to find out what that is, I want you to go log in, create your account, peek at the syllabus for the year in the darkroom, and get excited again. It's this can't. Bethard.com darkroom My friends, happy, happy new year. Cheers to 2026. Cheers to six years and 350 episodes of the podcast. And cheers to building a brighter future for your business. I'll see you next 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'tbethathard.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.