3 Things I Learned in 2022
2022 was one for the books. It was my first full year as a small business owner/professional photographer, and I honestly learned SO much. While I could probably write a book of all the things I’ve learned, I’ve gathered 3 main lessons that 2022 brought me:
Being a business owner is all consuming.
Honestly, my brain never shuts off from it. I thought when I left my RN job, I would be able to work as much or as little as I want, make my own hours, be my own boss, etc. And yes, that’s all true to an extent. But the actuality of it is - well I just NEVER stop working. Have a set boundaries for myself?? Absolutely. But I can never let a new inquiry hang in my inbox long. I am never not cooking up my next mini session event, etc. You get what I’m saying!
It is impossible to do it all alone.
This was hard to learn. As a new business owner, I really just could not grasp the concept of “it takes a village.” I wanted to keep my overhead as low as possible, roll up my sleeves, and put in the work myself. Well - see lesson #1. Being a small business owner is all consuming, and eventually I learned I needed boundaries. I learned that I couldn’t do a good job with every piece of the biz if I didn’t start delegating. So, I started outsourcing. I don’t technically have “employees,” although I would love to eventually get there. But I do have a few people that help me behind the scenes make sure everything runs smoothly on the back end of my business.
Undercharging will cause burnout.
The most cringe thing to talk about - Money. Here’s the short of it - going into this business I had no idea what the hell "Cost of Doing Business" meant. CODB is a calculation that business owners follow to figure out what they need to charge to be profitable. Well, let's just say - I was definitely not profitable when I first started out. I was actually losing money, which is the quickest way to burn yourself out. I calculated my CODB, and damn, it was scary. I didn’t think anyone would pay me what I needed to run a profitable business. Well, I took the leap anyways, and you wanna know what I learned? People will pay for what they value! So, the moral of the story is, I ran my numbers, charged what I needed to run a kick ass business, and guess what - People freaking showed up and I had my craziest year yet!