How would you describe your business before you came to the workshop? What were you doing? What were you worried about? What were you selling/communicating? How were you performing?
I had a pretty good idea of who my target market was, but I wasn’t putting anything out on my website that I had any particular credentials to serve them. I serve a pretty funky, individualistic and irreverent crowd. I had spent a number of years working at fairs and festivals (as a carny) and had kept that under wraps as it felt white-trashy and pathetic. I knew deep in in my heart that it was a great adventure, but I thought it would make me seem less professional and insecure. I had been spending a lot of energy trying to cultivate an image that would fit in with other wedding photographers. Ha – no such luck anyway.
Fortunately, I had not wasted any time trying to make my photos look like everyone else’s. I have my own photography style and sense of humor; I am always trying to make different unusual images. I had attracted my audience by showing the images, but had done nothing to talk about who I was as a human being on my website.
What did you learn in the workshop? How did your perception of your business change? How did your feelings/satisfaction/happiness change after the workshop?
I learned to just be brave about being myself with people I didn’t know. My close friends recognize me as the lovable freak that I am, but I never ran with it as a business identity.
I am much more satisfied with my business now. I am more open with my lifestyle choices (living somewhat itinerantly in order to swim in the ocean as much as I want in the summer and ski all winter.) I am more comfortable with cashing in on my lifestyle credentials. I gave myself authority to serve the funkier market that I target.
How would you describe the workshop? Why should someone go to the SB workshop?
You should take the course, to uncover what differentiates your business from everyone else’s. It gave me a roadmap and guiding principles from which to make decisions in the future. I am much clearer on who I am as a business and can run decisions past these principles to help me decide if a business decision is a good one.
As a case in point, I had decided (before Sexy Business) that I would be vocal on Gay Marriage. I believe in the cause strongly, and it is the only “political” stand that I take in public. Being vocal about this has won me the respect of my current clients. Maine just legalized gay marriage and, it was a no-brainer to go City Hall at midnight when a the first marriage licenses were going to be issued and the first wedding was to be held. I used my newspaper connections to to get into City Hall and I shot the event as a photojournalist, not as a “wedding photographer”. I then posted it all over my blog and facebook. It is a cause that my target market feels strongly about (I have heard it mentioned during more than one wedding ceremony) and to be unequivocal in my support had won me many “likes” on Facebook.
Regardless of the gain it brings my business, I am happier being open about it, and even happier still about any business it might have lost me. Any potential clients that would be turned off by this (or anything else on my website) can enjoy a “Good Riddance” from me.
- AK
Our Mystic, Boston, and Las Vegas workshops have already sold out this year. There are still spots open in Chicago (April 21-24) and we’ll be announcing new workshops in Atlanta and (probably) Boston again later in this year. Check out he SEXY BUSINESS page for more information and to get on the waiting list for Atlanta or Boston send me an email at [email protected].
