4 Lessons on building a business with integrity (+ journal prompts)
In case you hadn’t noticed from all my posts(!), this summer I’m celebrating a whole 11 years since starting my business! Woohoo!
I’ve been looking back at this past decade or so and reflecting on what this time has held for me: the best bits, the hard stuff and the learnings that have come from it all. (I wrote more about my exploration here, recently.)
Today I’m getting more specific and sharing four of the biggest lessons that have come to me during this time, as well as how those manifest in the day to day (or year to year!) running of my biz. I’m also sharing journal prompts to take them further. I hope you find them useful!
I’m always in a learning process of some kind (aren’t we all?) and could have shared SO MUCH MORE. In an effort to keep this a somewhat manageable length(!) I am sharing just four that feel most alive to me today.
I hope these learnings feel relevant and personal to you too, that they reassure you about your own ways of operating, or even inspire some new ideas!
And I’d love to know; what comes up for you as you read these insights? And what have been your own biggest business insights so far!? Comment below!
1. Relationships are everything, and they need to be nurtured.
A business cannot survive as an entirely solitary mission, they exist in relationship to what they serve and who’s behind them.
Building and maintaining relationships are what have allowed me to connect with and attract my wonderful clients over the years, be recommended, have clients return, refer their peers, interact with my online content, and promote my offerings.
Frankly, without this precious trust and connection with my network, nobody would know about me, have faith in my work, or be investing in my packages. My business wouldn’t function! I wouldn’t have the great honour of getting to know and collaborate with these people, learn from their wisdom and our conversations, or evolve as a professional in my industry.
Relationships are a two way thing, they require ongoing connection and mutual care, interest and respect which I’ll speak to further below.
Photo from one of my Paris shoots with Kim Morrison & friends. See the full post here!
Some of the ways I build & nurture relationships include:
Always checking the intention behind my marketing activities, and communicating from a place of integrity.
Taking deep care with my clients at every step of our work together to ensure they’re feeling supported, connected, and come away with the photos they need from the photo-shoot.
Learning & caring deeply my clients as people, their interests, preferences, tastes. Sharing things they’ll enjoy (gifts in the mail, a link to an article they’d find interesting, music, events).
Bringing genuine curiosity, openness & interest to every person I meet whenever I have the capacity. Following up with people I’ve enjoyed meeting & chatting more if there’s mutual good vibes. Finding out how I can help & linking them up with people I think they’d have a fruitful connection with.
Following up with past clients to make sure they’re happy. Doing what it takes to make it right when issues occasionally, but inevitably, arise over the years. Gifting rewards for referrals.
Staying engaged with clients & peers, celebrating successes & milestones, offering support.
Keeping in touch with my mailing list (full disclosure - this one has come, gone, and come back again! I’m re-committing!! You can join me here if you like!).
Journal prompts for reflection:
Which biz relationships have had the most positive impact in my life, work, and mental health so far, and why? Who do I need to thank?
What activities and interactions have helped me to build & maintain strong connections?
What action can I take to better nurture these relationships?
How can I build these practices & activities into my weeks?
2. It’s necessary for you to be paid well for the work you do.
Asking for payment for the work we do can be deeply uncomfortable when we start out. Especially when we actually like the work. Somehow it can feel more ethical to get paid to do things we don’t enjoy than the stuff we do.
At the end of my initial calls with potential clients, I used to get SO NERVOUS about sharing my packages and prices. And honestly? Sometimes I still do! (Do they think it’s too much? Do they think I’m greedy or out of touch? Do they think I’m trying to rip them off?).
And then I remember why my rates are what they are; how I worked them out with actual maths, how much of myself and my energy goes into my work, how much I deliver, my actual capacity, and the benefits my clients get from the exchange. I didn’t pluck my prices out of thin air, and I have returning clients who happily invest at the rates I charge, which tells me that it’s a great exchange for those people.
We’ve all inherited beliefs about money from our families, society and culture. We grow up with ideas about whether money is good or bad, about how much is an ethical amount of money to earn, and what it means about your worth as a person if you do or don’t have it.
When it comes to pricing our services, it can set us on a rollercoaster of confusion and self doubt. Working on our ‘abundance mindset’ and ‘wealth consciousness’ can be helpful, but some of the teachings in this realm I’ve found to be seriously questionable or simply not for me. When we factor the horrors of living inside capitalism, there are many pieces to the puzzle to contend with and work through.
Like anything, I think it’s important to learn about money, wealth, mindset and economics from lots of different perspectives, and from people from as many different situations as possible. While there’s no one right way to price things, we can be informed from multiple sources and then move forward in the way that feels the most aligned for us, and charge rates that allow us to be fairly and sustainably compensated for our work, enabling us to live and operate our businesses with joy and creative energy.
Here’s how I set & align with my pricing:
I don’t simply turn up and take photos on the day of a shoot. My work is about building a relationship before the day, learning about my clients, tapping my creativity to design a session that’s bespoke to each client. I use my skills as both a holder-of-space and as a skilled photographer. Afterwards there’s the post processing which people don’t get to see. Here’s what I do to clarify & align with my pricing:
I work out how much money I need each month/year to live. (Accounting for ALL personal and biz expenses, tax, car related costs, annual subscriptions, house bills, food shopping, savings, gifts, etc.)
I reflect on the needs of my clients, how I like to serve them, what I want to offer, and build offerings to align with that.
I clarify the n. days/hrs it takes work with each client.
I recognise I have a limited no. days/hrs each month to work, which tells me how many sessions I can realistically take on monthly.
This number tells me what the price of my packages needs to be in order for me to earn enough money to pay my bills (or more!).
Therefore, if this is the service I offer, and this is a service that people want to have, and this is how much money I need to live each month, then this is the price that the service has to be.
What I find reassuring to remember is this: The alternative to charging the necessary amount of money is to charge too little. This has us overdelivering, getting burnt out and not actually doing the best job for our clients, not being able to afford to live, closing the business (making the service no longer available). ‘How much to charge’ is a choice, and it needs to work for us as business owners and for our clients, otherwise it cannot be sustainable.
Journal prompts for reflection:
How is my financial situation & relationship to money feeling RN?
How would I like my financial situation to feel?
Using the above process to understand my own expenses, services, and availability, how much do I need to be charging?
3. Human support systems are a requirement for your soul.
There have been good times in my biz where there’s lots to celebrate, and there have been really hard times where I’ve questioned everything and wondered whether I should or can even keep going. As a self employed person, I carry it all, and sometimes that can feel overwhelming.
It’s so important to have community around us: friends, coaches, business buddies or mentors to support us along the way, to hold a space for us to talk things through and explore our feelings. These people can share in our joy, hear us in our struggle, advise us through blocks & dilemmas (with permission), or simply be there to give us a hug when it all feels too much. We’re there to support them too and return the care.
Having trusted ones who know about my secret dreams, everyday goals and believe in what I’m doing has a profound impact on how I see myself and what’s possible for me. Community helps me find the courage to follow through on my ideas, be held accountable to the things I say I want to do, and ultimately realise more of the things that are in my heart.
Whether it’s loved ones we don’t have to pay for mutual support, or a coach we invest money to work with, this connection is hugely important.
This has been a hard one for me since moving to Somerset, as I don’t have much of a local sense of community yet. But thanks to the wonders of technology, I can stay in regular contact with my close ones, and am so excited to be going along to more in person events now!!
Some of my human support systems have included:
Simply having regular, mutually supportive conversations with loved ones who get me & my work, or business buddies and peers, in person or virtually. These are especially important at times of change, during launches, etc, to help keep me grounded & connected to my vision, and it inspires me to hear about what my peers are doing too!
Setting up regular co-working days (or, ‘Get-Shit-Done’ sessions) with my best friend on Zoom. Our focus is to tackle a project or activity we’ve been putting off so that we can both focus on ‘the thing’ together. We begin with a brief catch up, share our intentions for the session, and crack on. Working alongside each other, even if virtually, helps us to stay focussed and means we can celebrate each other at the end. It’s also great for our relationship and helps us stay connected with what’s going on in each others lives and careers.
Hiring a brilliant coach or mentor to support and guide me over a period of months or years.
Having an accountability buddie and speaking weekly/fortnightly.
Joining a biz coaching program which includes some kind of group or mastermind aspect, where we can connect with one another.
Creating a friendship-based, non-hierarchical mastermind group of fellow biz owners (I’m in the process of setting one up right now!)
Being an active member of my local co-working space Platf9rm when I lived in Brighton.
Journal prompts for reflection:
Who make up my human support systems?
How satisfied am I with my sense of community right now?
What could I do to feel a greater sense of community?
How can I better nurture my existing community / human support systems?
4. You know what’s right for you, creative one. Trust yourself.
Working with a coach, getting advice from trusted ones or guidance from a mentor can be extremely helpful, and there’s a lot we can benefit from other peoples experience on. This is especially true when it comes to learning our craft, business etiquette, or practical stuff we just don’t know how to do when we’re fresh to business, or when we’re exploring a totally new avenue in our work. Learning from those more experienced than us is so helpful and can feel necessary at times!
However. At a certain point, we need to let go of ‘what they would do’, or the elusive ‘right’ way of doing things. Because (and I know this won’t surprise you!), the right way to operate or craft our businesses does not exist! There are simply choices.
Like each of us, our businesses are unique. They’re our art. They’re one of the ways in which we express ourselves, engage our creativity and cognition, and share our gifts and insight. They’re ours to build, shape and present in the ways that feel good and aligned to us. We’re inventors!
Instead of looking around for answers from the outside, we’ve got to develop the ability to trust in ourselves and our own ideas. Just because we haven’t seen something being done before doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. It’s just new, or perhaps not a common approach in your industry. Our unique ideas are worthy of consideration, and while a bit of external validation is always comforting, it’s also important to be able to do things in our businesses in the way we feel inspired to, regardless of whether we’ve seen it done before or anyone agrees with us.
Framing new business ventures or ideas as ‘an experiment’ can be a helpful way of freeing ourselves from the fear of getting it wrong.
When facing a choice, we have the opportunity to consider questions like ‘how would I personally like to do this?’, ‘how do I feel inspired to move forward?’, ‘what options are available and accessible to me right now?’.
I hope that it’s clear: asking for help is always okay!! What I’m saying is: depending on other people for answers, permission, outsourcing our decision making by default, minimising our creativity every time we have an idea, in order to follow through, is not sustainable and won’t feel good in the long run.
Also, the world won’t get to witness our creative wonder if we keep it all safely hidden in our imaginations or journals! Perhaps the idea we have is going to have a hugely positive impact on hundreds or thousands of people! Maybe it’ll change the world! Maybe it’ll generate the most income you’ve ever dreamed of! There’s also a chance it’ll not go so well, and we’ll be really disappointed. Whatever happens, we’ll have learned a thing or two. ‘Mistakes’, ‘failures’ and grief are 100% a part of the process. If we always play it safe, we’ll never have the opportunity to learn from the experience, and never create anything truly innovative in this world.
How I let go of the fear of failure & trust myself again:
Reminders:
Despite how scary business decisions can be at times, how serious it might feel, how stressed we might get; it is most likely a choice to be doing this work, and what privilege it is to have this choice. I do not say this to shame us, but to remind us of the freedom and real privilege of this. Let’s make the most of the gift of this opportunity.
Reflecting on why we started this business, reconnecting with our greater vision for the work, remembering times we have been brave, client testimonials, & finding ways to see ourselves again as capable, creative channels for this work is a great place to start when things get confusing.
Fresh perspectives:
From my point of view, businesses are creative projects by default, because they are creating experiences, impact and change at many different levels. Books such as Big Magic and Mindset have helped me to let go of worrying so much, open my mind, embrace my creativity and trust myself. I find myself returning to the learnings I have made when reading these books in these difficult times.
Great questions:
Something else I return to when I’m doubting myself, inspired by one of my amazing coaches Kristen Kalp, is asking myself the question ‘what if it could be fun?’. We have the freedom to play with this business, do it in a way that feels good and fun to us. When our work is coming from a place of curiosity, creativity, fun - even - I believe it has the most inspiring, juicy and exciting ripple effects.
Oof! There’s a lot here! I hope you have found these learnings useful and empowering.
I’d love to know what comes up for you!
Comment below, on the Instagram post or get in touch here.
Celebrating all our success.
P.S. If you need fresh, soulful brand photography to help move your business forward, I’d love to speak with you! Book in a call here and we’ll explore the kinds of shots that will best serve you.