144 | Is Your Income Goal Keeping You Stuck?

Summary:
If you’re anything like the photographers in my community, you’re probably feeling tired of comparing your level of success to other photographers in your market.

So many of my current clients have mentioned that they have been feeling like they aren’t “measuring up” to where they want to be in their business. And it’s left them feeling defeated and a little bit frustrated.

They’ve been hyper focused on hitting certain income goals and they’re feeling really burned out from it. And so one thing we’ve been focusing on is helping them create a new definition of success so they can take BIG action that actually creates more income and results.

We're opening up this conversation so that you can start feeling more confident and allow you to create goals that actually mean something to you and make a bigger impact inside your business.

My goal for you leaving this episode is to have a plan that will allow you to spend your entire summer celebrating the heck out of your business  because you have complete clarity around what success looks like for you – and you’re making moves and feeling the momentum that is going to get you there.

Let's dive in!

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• <<Coaching>> Photographers, are you ready to create a sustainable business strategy?
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, hello, friend, and welcome back to the show you are listening to, the she Calls Her Shots podcast, where we are all about empowering photographers like you to take inspired action and earn more money as a full-time photographer and business owner. And if we haven't met yet, hello. I'm Krista Marie. I have spent the last 15 years as a wedding photographer and in the last year I shifted into serving women business owners through personal brand photography, and over the course of the last few years, I've helped photographers all around the world build thriving photography businesses, both through this podcast and inside of my coaching programs. And in today's episode, the big question that I have for you is this is your income goal keeping you stuck? And as a side question to that, a follow-up question, if you will, is how are you currently measuring your level of success inside of your business? And if you're anything like the photographers in my community, you might be feeling a little tired. And if you're anything like the photographers in my community, you might be feeling a little tired, tired of comparing your level of success to others in your industry. So many of my current clients have mentioned to me that they've lately just been feeling like they aren't measuring up to where they want to be in their business, and it's honestly left them feeling a little defeated and a little bit frustrated. Because here's the thing that I've noticed and that's been coming up for my clients over and over again is they have been hyper focused, hyper focusing on hitting a certain revenue goal and, as a result of being hyper focused on hitting that revenue goal, they're feeling really burned out from it, and so, really, one thing that we've been focusing on inside of my community and with my clients is helping them create a new definition of success, one that actually measures the momentum and what they're building inside of their business. It measures it better than just basing it off of a revenue goal. It measures it better than just basing it off of a revenue goal, and what that does is it helps reframe what success looks like so that they can actually take bigger action that results in more income and more clients. So it's a small tweak here where we're shifting the focus, but it's an important one and I want you to hear.

Speaker 1: 2:25

This is just a little kind of interesting, fun fact for you. This is something that I have been thinking about in my business, right? We all, throughout our business journey, come up against the same things. It's just over time, you kind of approach challenges from a different perspective, and so this is even something that's been coming up for me lately, and what I have realized is that, instead of thinking about my revenue and my income goal as my measurement for success, my current measure of success and this might sound a little weird is how much am I sweating every day? And I know you're probably like Krista. What are you talking about? And I know you're probably like Krissa, what are you talking about? And I don't mean from like physical activity or working out and I know that probably just makes it sound even more confusing Like, how is me sweating more going to help me grow my business? I promise it'll make sense to you, and not only will it make sense, that might actually become your strategy for this month. Like hand to my heart, I won't be surprised if many of you leave this call and you're like Krissa. That's my goal also for this month. So, if so, we're going to totally turn into a cute t-shirt or a cute tank top, whatever, and we're going to make it a thing.

Speaker 1: 3:38

But I really want to take this moment and just really dive in and open up this conversation so that you can start feeling more confident that the goals and the things that you're measuring the metrics actually mean something to you and make an impact, and that you can actually spend this summer celebrating the heck out of your wins, because you're no longer hyper-focused on your income goals. You have complete clarity around what success looks like for you, and so you're able to make moves regularly that feel like really big wins, and we're just gonna take this summer to celebrate that. So even in the midst of all of the crazy busyness of the summer and the traveling and vacations and family time, you can still have a strategy in place that will allow your business to keep growing, and at the end of the episode, I'll share more information on how we can work together to create that plan and strategy for you. But for now, let's go ahead. Let's dive right into this conversation.

Speaker 1: 4:38

So if I asked you right now, I'd love for you to tell me how are you currently defining success in your business? What is the actual definition and metrics that qualify your business as being successful? Is it an income goal? Is it booking a certain number of clients? Which caveat the booking a certain number of clients might also be tied to an income goal. Usually, I find those two go hand in hand, because these are the two things that I hear most often from my coaching clients. And while I do think that having income goals are really important of course we are in a business, we want to make money I really want us to talk today about why you shouldn't be using that income goal as your big main motivator and your overall business metric for success. So I want to tell you this story, and this is one that you might actually really be able to put yourself in and relate to.

Speaker 1: 5:40

So I was on a coaching call with a client and she came to the call and she felt pretty overwhelmed and a little bit defeated. At the beginning of the year she had set a certain income goal for herself and for her business, and at the time when she set that income goal, it felt really exciting, right, like it lit her up. All she could think about was imagine how my life is going to feel when I accomplish this goal, and so it felt really motivating for a time being right, and she was actually so excited by it that she had it saved as the background on her computer, like it was the driving force of what kept her showing up, because she had this income goal that she really wanted to reach. But as time went on, the number the income goal number started to feel a little more daunting. Because as the months passed by, if she wasn't hitting the monthly goals that she had hoped the monthly goals that would eventually bring her to that income goal that income goal started to feel overwhelming and she started to feel really defeated and kind of like crushed by the goal. It no longer felt motivating, it no longer felt exciting. Now that income goal was starting to make her feel more and more like she wasn't capable and she wasn't going to hit it.

Speaker 1: 6:59

And I just want my heart every time I think about that, my heart, I can just feel it because I know that I have been there right, having grown a business for the last 15 years. I know exactly how this feels, because I've been in those moments where at first we have these big income goals and they feel so exciting and we're so over the moon thinking about what our life is going to be like when we hit it. But it's like that until it's not like that anymore. Right Like it's amazing until it's not, and inevitably right, like when we start to fall behind on that goal and when it starts to feel a little overwhelming. We tend to then start to become kind of frustrated, maybe even a little bit angry with ourselves, because we see ourselves getting further and further behind and further away from that goal with every month that our business isn't bringing in money. And when we're in that place it starts to, of course, affect our mindset.

Speaker 1: 8:02

But here's the bigger thing Like, yes, your mindset of course is going to be like a really important piece of this puzzle, but because your mindset starts to go in a not super great helpful place, that also affects the actions that we're taking or, alternatively, the actions that we stop taking in order to grow. So I know you might be thinking okay, krista, I can relate to this, but if I'm not gonna be focused on an income goal, what the heck do I focus on? Because your girl still needs to make money, right, like we need to make money in our business in order to stay profitable and to actually have a business. So I hear you and the thing is right and the message that I hope is kind of coming home for you is that when we are only focused on the income numbers, we actually set ourselves up for failure, and that's because the reality is the actions that we need to take to be growing our business right, aka to actually hit those income goals, the actions that we need to be taking aren't going to be directly correlated with bringing in money each time we do them, right. So, for example, each time you share a blog post, you're probably not going to book a new client right away, right? Or if you share one Instagram post and someone sees it for the first time, that's likely not going to be the one post that they see that they're like oh my gosh, yes, I'm ready to invest and work with you, right? So the reality is that the things that we need to be doing in order to hit those goals and make tons of money in our business. It requires time, and so if you're only focused on the income and yet every time you take an action, you're not bringing in immediate income, you're going to start to feel like you're spinning your wheels and you're going to burn yourself out and you're going to give up before you actually start seeing the money coming in. So, instead of hyper focusing on that income goal, I want you to focus on something that's actually inside of your control. And, as a quick note, if you haven't listened to last week's episode, I want you to add it next to your playlist because in that episode we really dove into some different marketing strategies that will help you to really go all in and focus on right now that don't feel overwhelming. That will help you to really go all in and focus on right now that don't feel overwhelming. That will help you build momentum and book more clients inside of your business. So if you haven't listened to that, plug that in next as your next episode. But for this episode specifically, I really want to encourage you to create a new way of thinking and measuring your success.

Speaker 1: 10:36

So I mentioned for me in the beginning, my current strategy and goals have nothing to do with my income numbers. Right, and that's because I know that when I stress and I try to control when and how people hire me, my content and the way that I show up my energy and how I share and talk about my business, when I'm hyper stressed about like wanting to hit certain income goals, my messaging and everything just gets real weird. Right, you know that feeling where it feels really robotic and like AI generated, almost because I'm so just trying to say the right things. I'm trying to post the right things so that people book with me, and what's really happening is that, instead of attracting people and booking people, it's actually doing the opposite. Right? People are not attracted to that type of messaging. And how I show up because there's almost this energy around it that I think people can sense. And it's not just an energetic, it's also like the way that you write content, the way that you talk about your business it changes Because, subconsciously, what happens is because we're so hyper-focused on hitting an income number, our brain almost kind of goes into this.

Speaker 1: 11:49

It's almost like a scarcity mode, right? Because in the background, in your subconscious, your brain is hyper-focused on I need to make this amount of money. So what your brain is hyper-focused on I need to make this amount of money. So what it does is your brain focuses on, well, I don't have this amount of money. And then it focuses on the gap, right? Well, how much do I have? How far away am I from making that number? And at the beginning, you might be really far away from hitting that number, right?

Speaker 1: 12:11

So now, all of a sudden, the way that you talk about your business is kind of along with this scarcity energy, because it's like, oh my gosh, I just need to get there right, we're just so hyper focused on how do I say the right things to get people to book with me and instead of building relationships and connecting organically and like really, just like coming across as that real version of you, instead of doing that, we're like that's when we become salesy, right, I think that's why people are so they feel a little weird and they're so worried about coming across as salesy. It's because, likely, they're hyper-focused on the number, right? They're so hyper-focused on their income that they feel like they have to be salesy. And so, honestly, I just got tired of that feeling, right, like yuck, like I didn't want that, and so I got really tired of building my business and creating content from that place. And that's why my current measure of success, right, is how much am I going to sweat each day? And you're like Krista, please tell me what are you talking about?

Speaker 1: 13:11

And what I mean by that is that I, for me, right now, my measure of success is every single day, am I showing up and bringing like the real, real version of me, right? Not this like protected, like oh, I don't really want to share my opinion and I don't want to, like, make people upset because, let's be honest, I have spent the majority of my life walking on eggshells hoping that I don't upset people. But here's the thing If I don't stand for something, I really don't stand for anything, and how are people going to connect with me if I don't really stand for anything? Right? And so my current measure of success for me is how, like, am I showing up as the real, real version of me? Am I sharing the true and authentic version of me, my beliefs, my opinions, and am I ditching the cares around what other people might think? Because the one thing that I know to be true is when I show up as the most real and authentic version of myself. That's the kind of energy that draws people to me. That's the version of me that people can actually relate and connect with, right? That's the magnetic energy that actually brings in the clients and the income. But first I have to detach from the income goals, right? And so the reference to like, am I sweating? Is because it's scary, it's really scary to show up in that mentality of I'm just going to show up as the most real, honest version of me. I'm going to stand for something, I'm going to be bold, I'm going to share the realness of me, and that is how I'm currently measuring my version of success is if, at the end of the day, I can go to sleep and check it off and say, yep, I that then I know I've made it right. I'm measuring my success and I'm tracking, and that again just brings in so much more and actually creates the foundation of your business and your brand. It gives your potential clients something to connect to.

Speaker 1: 15:16

And I thought of this as I was thinking about this episode. Right, is I thought of an analogy here of, like we think about the big box stores? Right, it's like the Walmarts, the Targets, Best Buys, all the big companies and, of course, those bigger companies. Right, they're going to hyper focus in on their revenue goals. I mean, obviously there's like a lot of things that they have to maintain with employees and products and stores and all of that. But right, they are, their whole mo is to optimize and focus on doing one thing really well, right, like you're not going to go to Target and get a massage. Right, like it's like they know what they do, and they do it really well and when right, because they're they're super optimized for efficiency and bringing in revenue.

Speaker 1: 15:58

But if we think about this from if we were to run our business like this, imagine if I told you if you were a wedding photographer, you are going to have wild success in your business. You're gonna be booked out every single weekend, every weekend, 50 weddings per year and bringing in tons of money, but you're only going to be shooting at the exact same venue every single weekend. My question to you is who would want that? Nobody would want that. I can't say nobody. Maybe someone would want that.

Speaker 1: 16:32

But right, it's like when we're so hyper focused and revenue and income is the only goal, we're losing so much of our creativity and the fun. And like the reason why we started this business in the first place. And so when we put so much focus on the numbers and the revenue goals, we're closing ourselves off to new ways of making money. Right, like if you're only working using that example, if you only work with one wedding venue, you're missing out on so many opportunities to work with other vendors in other cities and other locations and travel. Right, it's like when we only hyper-focus on one thing we close ourself off to other opportunities and we don't allow ourselves to experiment or play with new offers as much as we would want to, because we're so worried what if it fails, right? What if it doesn't bring in money? Will it be worth the time? And I want you to just imagine today. One year from now, you might have completely different offers in your business. You might be working with clients in a completely new way.

Speaker 1: 17:39

If you would have told this to me a year and a half ago, that I would no longer be taking on weddings, I would have been like what, right? But it's like we have to let ourselves go with our energy. We have to let ourselves focus on things besides the money, because if I would have just stayed hyper focused on making money, I don't know that I would have stopped taking on weddings, because I would have believed the story that I kept telling myself that the only way I can make money is if I'm a wedding photographer. But thank goodness, I didn't let that story win and I focused on things outside of revenue. And here we are right, and so I want you to just think about that. You know, the more that we show up and the more fun that we have, the more money we have the potential of making. But we have to detach from the income goal as being our main source of motivation.

Speaker 1: 18:33

So, that being said, my question for you today is this what are you going to commit to focusing on besides the income and your number of clients, like, what goal is going to be your new measure of success for you and for inside of your business? And I want you to send me a message Like I mean this send me a message on Instagram at hey, krista Marie, and tell me what are you focusing on If it's not income at heykristenmarie, and tell me what are you focusing on If it's not income. What are you focusing on? And listen, if your measure of success is also to show up and sweat every day because you're ditching the veil and you want to be the real, real version of you, I want to celebrate that with you too, right, and also send me your shirt size so we can order tank tops. No, I'm just kidding, but honestly, let's celebrate us taking our ownership right. But, honestly, let's celebrate us taking our ownership right, taking it back and really committing to showing up more fully and having more fun and making more money. So I just I hope that that gives you some encouragement and a reframe to let some of the income goals let it go.

Speaker 1: 19:37

And if this is something that you struggle with or if you want more support on creating this strategy and you're ready to join a community of women that are honestly ditching that hustle, I love to have you join us inside of Amplify. It's my group coaching program for photographers and once you're in, we'll work together to create a strategy and goals that help you not only create that profitable, thriving business, but goals that feel good. And goals that help you not only create that profitable, thriving business, but goals that feel good and goals that really help you to come alive and really lean into your gifts. And if you're interested, you can find the link to join us inside Amplify in the show notes below. And, as always, I'm just so grateful to be here to support you and I'm excited to hear your takeaways and your new strategy and your income goals On Instagram. Send me a note at HeyKristaMarie and I look forward to chatting over in the next episode.