Questions Answered in this Episode

• • When should you break the rules for your business?
  • How did breaking the rules ultimately help my business?

Show Notes

Breaking All the Rules for Mutli-Passionate Creatives

When I first started booking clients and trying to turn my photography skills into a business, I had no idea what I was doing. I had a great foundation from working with my wedding photographer and mentor, Amanda Hedgepeth (check out Episode 2 for a more in-depth conversation with Amanda), but I was marching to the beat of my own drum. I didn’t even know there were rules to break, so I was just doing what felt right.

Once I started to get more experience, I was paying a lot more attention to what everyone else was doing. This was clouding my thoughts and my intentions. I started to care too much about whether what I was doing was lining up with everyone else. Was I doing things the “right” way?

I knew I wanted to grow the educational side of my business. It had always been a part of my dream for my business to incorporate education and community in some way. I launched Creatives Live Happy to help other creative entrepreneurs. Unlike the photography side of my business, I didn’t have a mentor for this. So I dove into some research and decided I would follow all the rules when I launched my coaching project.

When I did what I was “supposed” to do, I didn’t have the success I was expecting.

Breaking the Rules, Finding Success

According to everything I read and everything I was told, my photography business and my coaching business needed to be separate. Two websites, separate social media accounts, all with different content. But when I did what I was “supposed” to do, I didn’t have the success I was expecting. I was spread too thin and even though I had invested a lot of money, time, and effort into my Creatives Live Happy business, it just wasn’t working the way it was. I decided to break some rules and combine everything under one website and social profiles because it didn’t make sense to me to separate out the two sides of my business. I decided that I just needed to trust myself.

When I made that change, I didn’t lose photography business. In fact, more brides found their way to me and told me that they liked what I was doing for the community. My coaching business and my programs like Find Your Five started to grow, too. Letting go of the rules and letting go of the “perfect” way of doing things ended up being the best thing for me.

The Magic is in Showing Up

The best business advice I have to give is to just be yourself and just show up. Be there. Be present. Show up and be who you are. It’s easy to give into the fear that we’re being judged because we’re not perfect. The reality is that people are going to be judging us no matter what. We’re never going to make everyone happy and that fear shouldn’t hold us back.

Sometimes, it gets uncomfortable. When I was going through my struggles with Creatives Live Happy, it was really uncomfortable and I was so afraid of what everyone would think. I’m so glad that I decided to follow my intuition and trust myself. If you’re hesitating, if something doesn’t feel right, listen to yourself. Trust yourself! It will be the best thing you do for your business!

Takeaways

• Listen to your own instincts and break the rules when it makes sense for your business.
• Don’t worry so much about what other people are doing or what they might think of you. Trust yourself!

Important Links & Resources

Creative Network for Hampton Roads

My wedding photographer and mentor, Amanda Hedgepeth of Amanda Hedgepeth Photography

Up next week

My sister-in-law Rachel Bakes goes full-time!