Should You Grow Beyond Yourself?

Transcript

Transcript of the recorded lesson. Recorded 2023, reviewed 2026.

In this video I'm going to give my thoughts on whether you should be a photographer or grow a business. Now let me start by saying growing beyond yourself is a personal decision. And just because entrepreneurship has been put on a pedestal over the last several years, doesn't mean building a multi-person operation is right for you. You can make a great living in this industry by yourself as long as you deliver a great customer experience. I was making over $10,000 a month within 6 months of starting my business, so making a good living is definitely within reach as long as you work hard. I made more money in my first year by myself than the next 2 years of working to scale

my business. It took way more effort to make a lot less money. To me the sacrifice was worth it because I was more passionate about business building than photography. So I did everything in my power to make the transition to focus solely on the business. Some might think that hiring another person will double your income, but that's not the case. There's a lot more expenses and changing business dynamics that go along with bringing on additional people. Now one thing to remember if you decide to grow beyond yourself is that it will take a lot of hard work and dedication every day at least for a few years.

I took no weekends or holidays off and I didn't have much of a personal life for a year because I was dedicated to delivering a great customer experience. Now one thing to think about if you decide not to grow beyond yourself is if you start to get really busy you can always increase your prices and your best customers will likely stick around and you'll be able to make more money while working fewer hours. Increasing your prices is a better solution than hiring more people. If you look around the majority of photographers operate by themselves I think the biggest reason for this is they don't make their business processes scalable and simple enough

to teach others. This is exactly what I was thinking to myself when I was working by myself. I would think to myself how am I going to train other people to do what I'm doing and I was able to figure it out. And that's what's nice about our current processes is that you can easily train others. In the creative space I believe this is the number one obstacle to business growth. In my opinion your first few hires are going to be your most crucial to business growth. I got lucky with my first hire he was a very hard worker and we were on the same

page. You want to spend time to train and make sure that you get good hires especially at the beginning. As I was growing the business initially there were times that made me think of whether or not it was worth the effort especially in the middle of big problems. But I love the process of building businesses it's a lot of fun for me even with all the issues that come along with it. So if you enjoy problem solving then growing beyond yourself may be right for you. Anyways these are my thoughts on whether you should scale beyond yourself or not. It's going to be a personal decision.

There is no right or wrong answer. I think it's important for you to look yourself in the mirror and figure out what success looks like for you. Anyways I hope you found this video helpful. If you have any additional questions reach out. We'll see you guys on the next one.