How many of you are afraid to make any mistakes? How many of you are perfecting every aspect of their business for fear of making a wrong move? I know at first I was terrified of making some misstep and totally ruining my business. In fact, I think it is safe to say that fear of failure is my main motivation. I get to speak with many of you and I work intimately with a bunch of photography business owners every year and I think it is important to point out the following:
It is almost impossible to fail in your photography business.
You want to know how to fail? Make a mistake. Identify the mistake. Then ruthlessly repeat that mistake. Seek out more mistakes and ignore accordingly. Be selfish and pay attention to no one’s interests but your own. Bury your head in the sand and blame everyone else. And keep this up ad nauseum, for at least a few years.
Hardly anyone is that big of a jerk. Most entrepreneurs are determined, not stubborn. At some point even the most self-centered amongst us feels empathetic towards our clients. And no matter how much it may hurt to admit that we’ve screwed up almost none of us like it enough to do it for a long enough period of time to really put us out of business.
So that’s it, if you want to fail out of business screw up and keep making the same mistakes without learning or changing a damn thing.
Since most of us aren’t going to do that head out into the world and take your lumps with your big boy (or grown lady) pants on. You’re going to be fine and you have to make mistakes to move forward. Hell, this blog is entirely the result of mistakes made – we’re still kicking. So no need to be afraid of screwing up your business, be more afraid of not being bold enough to be interesting.
- trr
A Personal Note – that seems like a basic idea but if you haven’t heard it or don’t believe it yet it bears mentioning. A big, fat shout out to all the cool people that I met last week at Mystic Seminars. If you’d like to see us at the next Mystic go ahead and send Walter a message letting him know.
We launched a new edition of the SEXY BUSINESS WORKSHOP at Mystic – SEXY BUSINESS BOSTON Feb 17-20 2013. The good news for us is that it has already sold out in a few days. The bad news for you guys waiting for a new Eastern workshop will have to wait a little longer. Since this one went so fast we’re probably adding another New England/ East Coast workshop soon. To get on the waiting list send me an email. There are still slots open in our Chicago workshop (April 21-24 2014) and only a few left in our Las Vegas workshop immediately prior to WPPI (March 7-10 2013). Book now!
