Lessons

Lesson Info

Rate Your Business

What I wanted to do with these two days, to release the 28 challenges, was A, explain how I trained the girls in 28 days, B, explain why I trained the girls the way I did in 28 days, C, make sure I laid it out for you so that you understand it so you can now go and do it yourself, but more importantly I wanted to release these two days based around what I've already taught you on my other CreativeLive, so whether you bought them, purchased them, watched them, whatever. One of the things that I did do in the first CreativeLive was I spoke about my startup business and I talked about how I used vouchers to get people in the door, and I spoke to you about the fear of being in that situation where you are starting up your business and all the drama that comes with it, and we all know that, so we're gonna deal with that tomorrow definitely, but more importantly at the end of that business section, which was only an hour and a quarter long, I spoke about rating your business and where you're...

at. So I'm gonna expand on that and turn it into a checklist for your business, for your portrait business. Now this is any portrait business, so one of the things I noticed is as you become successful in business and then ultimately you go into other businesses and you see how other businesses are going, you often don't know how good you are until you go into other businesses and see what they're doing. And people tell you a lot about what they're doing, they tell you their average sales are really high and they're not. They tell you that they're doing really well and they're not, and this really, this business model that I created is so basic, so see if this helps what you've got going on at the moment and how you can implement this in what you're already doing, or if you're starting it right now, how you can make this amazing. So the first thing I needed to do was give you a checklist that you could actually be accountable for. I don't wanna hear that nobody's gonna go away and do it because you're actually gonna tick it off. So how many genres do you shoot is the first question that I'm gonna ask you. How many genres do you shoot? A genre would be glamour, weddings, newborns, family, boudoir, whatever, however many genres you have. I have one genre, I shoot glamour only. That was my decision. Maybe you like to shoot newborns and boudoir, maybe you like to shoot family, newborns, and boudoir, maybe some of you are like all the other startup photographers that shoot events, weddings, ceremonies, christenings, bat mitzvahs, birthday parties, lingerie parties, boudoir, glamour, you do everything, you're one of those photographers? Fine, but you need to refine that to a certain degree, or fill out a form for every one of your genres, but I'd pick the one that's making the most amount of money, and I would pick the one that you like the most also. The one that's making the most amount of money and the one you like the most might not be the same one, so we're gonna help you with that, so let's say you're doing weddings and glamour, but you hate weddings, that's going on your hate list, don't worry, we'll get to that. And you wanna do glamour full time, that's a block. I'm gonna show you how to get into that. So let's go through that, how many genres do you shoot? Just give me an idea. Do you have one genre, put your hand up. Okay, two genres. Three. Four. Five. So we're all very comfortably at three genres, so I'm gonna take a guess at being babies, glamour/boudoir, weddings. Would I be close? Anybody know? No for the three? Oh what are your three? Oh food, okay. And how do they pay, food? Yeah, okay, do you enjoy doing it? Yeah, yeah. Well at least they don't talk back to you when you pose them. (laughter) It's all right, I was just throwing that out there. Okay, so from here, fill out questions for each of these genres 'cause I think it's really important. I would like you to fill one out for food. So obviously you only have one form, so you're just gonna have to put three columns in there. We'll talk you through it anyway because this form is gonna be downloadable to the audience out there if you get this, but at home you can just write the question out, this is just to help you where you're at, so I need to get a really clear indicator of where you're at, and one of the most important things that I need to understand is if you bought me into your business as a consultant, I need to ask you these questions. If I was coming to you, these are the first questions I'm going to ask you. What is your brand? What do you look like? Mine is contemporary, magazine, fashion, glamour. That's how I want to look, and put these words above your desk and everything you do/market/design/create/connect with should involve these words. Now currently Jasmine Star's just done a program on CreativeLive where she pulled the three words for your band and she started a private group for Restart, which is doing really well and there's lots of support in there, maybe you watched it, maybe you're part of that group already, maybe you've done your three words, but for those of you that haven't, that is a really good group for you to join and watch, that was a good CreativeLive to learn that. I'm not gonna talk to you about branding today, I think it's a waste of time for me to talk about it, do you know why? My website is white, my logo cost me $25, I bought it from a... What do you call it, where you buy logos? Online. I did the font myself, I'm not brand focused. I am photography and service focused. Okay? That's me. That's my choice, everybody has a different strength. This is my strength. For me, when I say what is your brand, I don't wanna sit here and talk about your brand for three hours, what I wanna know is if you give me those words I can get a very clear definition of who you are. Like if you say hipster/funky wedding, hipster/funky/grunge wedding, then I instantly get a picture of what your website wants to look like, what your brand looks like, so you just need to tell me what that is, and I think that needs to be very clear to you. Now I want you tell me what you want to be, not what you are, so currently if you're not that and your brand doesn't display that, that means you're not shooting that, that's not who you are, you need to tell me who you are. There's a disparity between who you wanna be and who you really are right now, and you're marketing who you really are right now, so stop trying to be somebody else and just be okay with what you've got. Let's work with that. Everything you do, market, design, create, connect, should involve these words. So my PDFs now look like magazines 'cause see that, I'm contemporary magazine, fashion, glamour. Everything I do is a before and after 'cause that's glamour, everything I do has a fashion component to it because I want the fashion component to make me stand out, but I want people to get that they can look like, that everyday women can like fashion, so I wanna cross that bridge, and contemporary, yes. I want my brand to look contemporary every single time I post a photograph, I want people to say Sue Bryce is bringing portraiture into the third millennia. I wanna look modern, I wanna be Vanity Fair. So these words all correlate to everything I believe about my brand, you find yours, that's your brand. I want you to put down your price list, and the reason that I want you to write this price list is if you can't write it on those four lines there, you're in trouble. And I'm gonna show you why this afternoon when I got Amanda's PDF. (laughs) Amanda's hiding. So to answer your question about pulling the students up from a year ago, I'm gonna show you where they've failed, I'm not gonna show you where they've won 'cause you can just go to their own websites and see that. I'm gonna show you where they've failed and then I'm gonna show you where I failed at the same time. So this is not about showing you their failures and pulling them apart, it's about showing how I did the same thing that they did. Even though I told them better. Just had to throw that in there. What is your price list, now you cannot blind people with science, I'm gonna talk to you about that tomorrow, but if you can't tell me your price list basically in three paragraphs or three lines, you're in trouble. My images start at $275 on the wall and my folio boxes start at $1,200 and go up from there. My average sale is 3,300. Hear that? My images start at $275 on the wall and my folio boxes start at $1,200 and go up from there. My average sale is $3,300 and everything you buy you will receive on CD as well. Is that a good pitch? All right, it's non-threatening, I gave you information, I didn't withhold price, and you understood. It's that easy. So when I see that price list, Amanda, I didn't read it, do you know why? 'Cause it looked like a calculus equation for Good Will Hunting. (laughter) But in another language. Maybe Arabic, which I can't read and do. I was just like hmm. Okay, so what I need you to do is simplify that. And remember we're going to delve deep into pricing, we're gonna pull that apart and make it really transparent. So what products do you offer? These are the questions I need you to be answering in your business right now. You will sell what you offer, you realize that right? So I noticed (mumbles) on Anna's price list. She hit three prices, good girl, just like I taught her, and I noticed when she told me her average sale that she's selling her medium package. What does that tell you? (mumbles) is comfortable selling her medium package. Maybe she should shift it all up and then she'll sell more of her medium package. 'Cause she's not selling the less one, and she's not selling the biggest one, she's selling her medium package as her average. So she's the only one controlling that. And when she puts that even up $100, she's gonna up that every week $100 more, $400 a month, and that's only one shoot. So think about that. Are they easy to produce, the products you're selling? Like what have you got going on there that takes too long, that your clients complain takes too long, that costs too much? Are these products, if these products do not direct sales, remove them immediately. So my images start at $275 on the wall and my folio boxes start at $1,200 and go up from there, what does that tell you? That tells you I want to sell a 20 folio box and a wall image to every single person that comes into my studio, and they will get all of those images on CD high res, yes high res, no watermark. They've paid for them, they're theirs. So that's my pitch and that's how I sell it. So tomorrow when we go through price I'm gonna get you to simplify it that much so that when you do price yourself, there is no anxiety, you're not asking somebody how much you're worth, you're telling me what you're worth and then you're saying it like that, and when you turn around and say my package is $900, I do a beautiful album where you can choose a box instead, you're giving people two choices. Not 400. Because a confused mind says no. A confused mind says no. No. What is your average sale? When we determine your average sale, take your total income for the year, divide it by how many shoots you did, please don't tell me your average sale is three to five grand 'cause that would mean four. (laughter) An average is not three to $5,000. An average, if your average is three to $5,000 your average sale is $4,000. So don't tell me three to five, you know, three to 5,000 really. No, that's not your average, your average is four. The average is how many shoots you did and how much income you took in. Not what you spent, what you took in, and then you divide that by that number. Now my average sale in my studio in New Zealand was $1,850, and I would go to photography conventions and people would tell me that their averages were like three grand, four grand, eight grand, 10 grand, and I was like clearly I'm at the bottom of the food chain. And then I realized most of these people are lying. (laughter) They are, and if they're not lying to me they're lying to themselves. So I did a consultation in Australia, and this guy told me his average was three to $5,000 for a portrait shoot, so I said so four. And I said and what's your average for a wedding, he said eight to 10 grand, and I said okay, so nine. And then when I got into his studio I counted the amount of shoots he'd actually done and divided it by his portrait income and his average was 1,680. And he's telling me three to five grand, so his mind is saying we hit three to five grand regularly, he's not putting in his no sales or his low sales. You just forget those don't you, you just wipe them off, they didn't happen, and then all of a sudden I'm like okay, you need to understand this is just basic business 101, you are not trying to do anything but raise your average sale. And remember, I've said it to you a hundred times, I've said this in marketing classes, when you walk out of a sales room and you've done a $4,000 sale and you do an air punch and you just rock, 4K, yeah, and they paid right there and then 'cause I'm awesome and the photos are awesome, and then the next day you come out and you've done a no sale, or $200 and you're heartbroken and they've told you that you're a ripoff and they've said who would pay for this, how can you charge this in this economy, and you're in fetal position sucking your thumb. (laughter) Then all of a sudden you realize you did not do a $4,000 sale and you did not do a $200 sale, you did an $1,850 sale 'cause that is your average. And if I was to buy your business I would like to know how many bums on seats you had, how many people they spent divided by those bums on seats, so I can work out a true average of what you're really making and work out your profitability, that is basic business. That's how we do it. Okay, all emotion out the door. Some people spend less, some people spend more. Highlight a point. I met a waitress at a CreativeLive function who was gorgeous, I said god I'd love to photograph you, she said I'm a yoga instructor and I would love to be photographed, I really need some photographs doing yoga and I need some photographs doing this, I said take my card, I book her in, I do a shoot with her, I post it on Facebook and I write look at this beautiful waitress that I picked up at New York Pizza in Seattle, and now she's come in for a photoshoot and she looks like a supermodel. And all of these people wrote on my Facebook page she can't afford three and a half thousand dollars. Excuse me? I was so fired up that day. It wasn't one person, it was about 12. I was like A, she is a waitress and a yoga instructor, you don't know what she earns. She might come from one of the richest families in Seattle for all I know. And three, do you honestly judge your clients like that? So a waitress is not worth my time? I didn't tell you my package was $3,300, I told you my average was. If she spends $800 and pays it off $100 a month is she a bad client or is she contributing to my average? Oh boy, that makes me feisty. I worked in a jewelry store when I was 21, 22, and 23 years old, on top of my photography income, to supplement my income to buy a car. I had a $400 car that had no air conditioning and I was trying to buy my first $8,000 car and photography didn't pay dick. So I went and worked at a jewelry store on a Thursday night and a Saturday and Sunday for one whole year, best sales experience I ever got, and I watched a little woman walk up in a cleaning outfit, a little Chinese lady, walk up to the counter in a cleaner's outfit holding plastic bread bags, remember when bread used to come in plastic, back then in plastic, and nobody served her. And I walked straight up to her and held her hands and said can I help you? And she said yes, I would like to buy my granddaughter an engagement ring. And then she pulled $8,000 cash out of a plastic bread bag and paid for it, and in that moment at 21 years old I stood there and I said I will never judge another human being again. So don't you dare tell me that that waitress can't afford, I haven't sold to her yet, but when I do I'm gonna Facebook it, and I don't care if she spends 800 bucks or $4,000, that's not your business. So I think that was the crappiest attitude that I've seen in a long time, a long time, and I was really disappointed by it. So what is your average sale? Determine your average sale, be honest with yourself, your goal this year is simply to get more bums on seats and lift your average sale. Take all the emotion out of it, more bums on seats, lift your average sale. That's it. This is where you need to be. Now this is why we're doing the checklist. If you don't have bums on seats, that tells me your marketing is inactive. If you have a low average, that tells me your value and service is inactive. So every time now that we look at what you're doing I'm gonna mark off what you're doing wrong, do you understand? So now I can tell where you're going wrong. Not what you're doing right, like I said, big props, pat on the back, stop lying to yourself, just look at your hurdles so that we can fix them. We don't highlight what we've done wrong to make you feel bad about yourself. We do it so that you can identify with everybody else and learn from it. How clear is your communication? How clear is that? Do you clearly communicate who you are? And is it clear on your business card? Is it clear on your e-mail, on your e-mail PDF? Is it clear on your elevator pitch? Is it clear on the portfolio on your iPhone? I'm clear about what I do. I'm real clear. I'm on my iPad, I'm on my iPhone, I got a business card in my handbag, I got a kick in my step, and I've got an absolutely 100% self-promoting Sue Bryce glamour brand. So now tomorrow when we deal with your fears of putting yourself out there you can come back to this list and say I really struggled creating this list, but that there is a checklist because by the end of this month you need to produce for me a clear communicating website, business card, e-mail PDF, elevator pitch, and iPhone gallery. I have a gallery on my iPhone called Gorgeous. So when people wanna know what I do I go oh here, let me show you Gorgeous. This is what Gorgeous looks like. It has 280 photographs in it and they're all gorgeous. And I love it when people get my phone, and they don't look at three or four of them and hand it back. I'm usually going um, I just, can I grab my phone? And they're like oh I just wanna keep looking at them, keep looking at them. I need you to rate your website out of 10. One being bad, 10 being fantastic. Its functionality. Is it functional, is it easy to navigate, is it clearly communicating, because every photographer I have ever met hates their website. Every time I say right, we're gonna put that on, you'll go okay, I'm just redesigning it right now, um so when are you gonna put it up on your blog, I can redesign it by Tuesday. Because you're freaking out that I'm gonna put it on my website now and that you're gonna freak, listen people, look at my website, look how basic my website is. It works for me. Stop doing that, you're good enough now. Forget about it. As long as it's clearly communicating, as long as it's functional. How clearly does it communicate what you do and sell? How clearly does it do that? Does it waffle on about roses and walks on the park and beach, blah blah blah, I'm not interested in that. Tell me what you're gonna do for me. Does your website give me any idea of what I'm gonna get as a service, and if it doesn't then your e-mail PDF should be telling me that because you're not. And this is a basic checklist 101. When you have a brand and a style, that's who you are and what you do, when you have a product, that's what you sell. When you have a clear communication, that's what you say in your business. And once all of these channels get unblocked and cleared out, then what you're saying, what you're selling, what you're shooting, and what you want suddenly becomes very clear. And once you sought that out, the only person standing in your way is you. Because no more lies, no more bullshit. You have got no excuses anymore. How far off are you from the ultimate website? Oh if I had 20 or 30 grand to spend on my website. Do you honestly think right now, you've seen my website right, everyone's seen my website, do you honestly think a 20 or 30 grand website will make my brand better? No, it would make you envy my website more though right? But would it make you pay me? No, it would not. Would it make you book me? No, it would not. My website is basic, it is functional, it clearly communicates who I am, the before and after pages perfectly illustrates who I am, and to top it off my PDF gives you the rundown of the experience from behind the scenes visually with one price on it. I'm very easy to understand. I'm also very easy to find. My name is Sue Bryce. The only way you could screw that up is put an I in there. Instead of a Y. It wouldn't take you long, Google me. My name is Sue Bryce. My website is SueBryce.com. So I met this girl at a doctor's office and she's like what do you do, I'm like I'm a photographer, and she's like oh cool, have you got a website, and I said yeah I'm Sue Bryce and she goes oh you are Sue Bryce, and I was like my website is SueBryce.com, she goes well you're easy to find. I said I know, it's funny how dates don't call you back though. (laughter) What is your service goal? Everyone has a service goal. A service goal is your, hmm, there's lots of different words for a service goal. What's a few others? People say it's a... Mission statement. What else? Same thing right, your mission statement. For me it's a service goal. That every woman who walks into my studio has an incredible experience and gets a folio of the best photographs she's ever seen of herself. I think my mission, or my mission statement, or my service goal is pretty easy to understand. I wanna offer her the most outstanding service I can, I want her to buy a folio, and I want her to have the best photo she's ever seen of herself, three things. So I cover that really quickly. One two three. So when you ask me why do I do what I do, I just say that. That's what I'm saying, I don't have to sell anything to you, I just have to say that every woman that comes into my studio has an amazing experience, gets to see herself how I see her through my lens, and buys a beautiful folio. Then you get paid, I get paid, you get paid in beautiful photographs, I get paid in money, thank you very much. That's an exchange 50/50 of wealth. I believe that 100%, that's why I get it, my pitch is clear, my pitch is clearly communicating what I do and sell. But my true goal, or maybe I could just change that to my true goal, is that every woman in the world discovers how beautiful she is. That she gets to experience herself through my lens. That that thing, that self-hate that we talk about that stops us from feeling good about ourselves just gets taken away from you for one day. And for one day you get to see what I see when I look at you. And for one day you exist outside of that. And as a woman, I think that is one of the most powerful things you can give somebody and that you can receive. That's my true goal. Now when I work from a true goal I'm suddenly in a whole different place. Because I'm now not trying to just sell you a folio box, I'm trying to give you that experience and take you on that journey and it makes my life a lot easier to work from that place. I think that is, I wanna know what your true goal is, that's on there. How many shoots do you want per week? I ask this every single time, people need to tell me. Until you declare it, until you make it clear to the universe or to God or to Allah, whoever you speak to, I don't care, it does not matter to me who you speak to, until you declare it out loud, you will not get that. I want three shoots per week, I cannot do more now, I would rather spend a whole day and then spend my other two days selling and preparing than shooting because I can't shoot five days and not sell unprepared. My clients go without service and production. As soon as they go without service they don't give me referrals. That's life. I want three shoots per week, you might want one, you might want two, you might want 12. There was a time where I wanted 12 and I got 12. I worked really hard at that and I did it, and I had a whole team around me, but I got what I asked for and you'll find that you are getting exactly what you're asking for right now. And if that is nothing or debt or struggle or anything, well that's what you're asking for. So let's focus on that. And when I ask you what you want, you can't get what you want until you tell me what you want. You don't go to a restaurant and just sit there and hope that the waiter works it out. (laughter) And sit there all night, sit there all night, he wants to get paid. He wants you to order something. You know, and whether you call it a cosmic order in the universe, or whatever you think it is, it's just a clear vision of where you wanna go so you can walk towards it every day. Somebody just wrote on Facebook that Tony Robbins and Annie Leibovitz had a child and they named her Sue Bryce. (laughter) I don't think Annie would be pleased about that, just quietly. (laughs) I'm laughing 'cause I'm on my soapbox. Hey Sue, just so you know, somebody in the chatroom, MePhoto, said "I wish I could "show you when you are lonely or in darkness "the astonishing light of your own being." Hafiz. Beautiful, beautiful quote, wow. Do you ever think, in those dark moments, that you just wanna look to somebody to lift you out of that, and then tomorrow I'm gonna tell you how I learned that I could actually do it myself? And that brain locks down on that thing you don't wanna be thinking about and it can't stop, and it returns to it, and it gets darker and darker and darker and you really, I think of that quote. So important to me right now. I am really really fired up about this basic checklist because to me it seems now so obvious. When I was doing it it was so hard 'cause I was so lost in the emotion of it. I wasn't in the reality of it, of business being business. At what time did business become emotional? I don't know when, it's a numbers game people, play the game. But the most incredible part about that is every single one of you right now are running your business in direct proportion to how you feel about yourself personally, and that is how you feel about money, and that's how you feel about creativity, how you feel about your own time, did you know that each of you are in the exact relationship you think you deserve? So for all of you that are in great relationships, smug it out. (laughter) And all of you that are in crappy relationships, then that's what you think you deserve. But there's the truth, it's a hard thing to hear, so that means the money you're making is what you think you deserve, everything you're thinking is what you think you deserve, and you're working towards that every single day by re-energizing it every single day, everything you own, everything you are right now in this moment is 'cause of what you believe about yourself. What do you want your average sale to be? So you've told me what your average sale is. What do you want your average sale to be? Tell me your average sale is $350 and you want it to be $1,350, what are you gonna do to get that average up? 'Cause you have to lift the value of your game, your business, your belief around money, and what you're offering and your service. So tomorrow when I talk to you about money I'm gonna talk to you about an incredible book that changed my world. Just read a book. Changed my world. 'Cause what it did was it taught me something about my mind and how I think about money, and I was so blocked about money it wasn't funny. I had money constipation. (laughter) And it was bordering on fecal impaction. (laughter) It was severe, and it was chronic. What I want now is tomorrow, when you go back through this list, tomorrow when we talk about fear, money blocks, and all the rest of it, you're going to be looking now at these checklists and seeing where it is that you're failing. And it's really simple. Where are you going wrong? Is really where we start because I don't care about where you're going right. And this is the best part. I love shooting and I love Photoshop, it's easy for me to get lost in both of those things, but the truth is I need to focus on the things that I'm doing wrong, not on the things I'm doing right. So I wanna clear that out, clear that out, clear that out. What I hate about my business. Three years ago, when I moved to Australia, I had a bad year, a bad ego year. I got to the end of the year and I was just like I read these books, I'm gonna free my mind, free your mind, money will flow, life will flow, work will flow, passion will flow, it doesn't because your mind is not free, because you can think it, but if you don't do it nothing happens, I'm struggling, I'm hating it but I know 'cause I'm reading the books I wanna free my mind, and then all of a sudden I realize something. The easiest way to start loving your body when you're overweight is to stop hating it, you don't have to start loving it, just stop hating it. As soon as you stop hating it that's actually easier to do than loving it. As soon as you want to make money you just stop concentrating on your debt and just focus on service, then money flows, it's that simple, it's like, I don't know, it's just magic. That's how it works. So I started to think about my business, instead of what do I love about my business, instead of focusing on what I love and trying to be grateful for it, what do I hate doing, I hate doing this, I hate doing my accounts, I hate it. I hate processing my orders. I hate doing it. I avoid it. In fact I avoid it until it gets overdue and then my clients get angry because I hate it so much. So I wrote the I hate list, and I was really passionate on my list, I was like I hate doing that, and then I was like I hate doing my accounts, so I wrote it all out, and then I realized that my hate list was 98% of my job. (laughter) So that tells me I need to get another job. So then I wrote imagine if, on a miracle world, I had a million dollars in my bank and I could do whatever I wanted, and I wrote the dream list, so you write the hate list and then you write the dream list, and the dream list is without limits. I've got a million dollars sitting here. If you look under your seat right now, it's stuck to the bottom and you're all getting a million dollars to live your dreams! None of that's gonna happen, but the best part about that is let's say I did give you a million dollars right now, let me tell you something, Oprah paid off the debt of 200 people and she went back a year later and they were all in the same amount of debt. Why? 'Cause they didn't change anything! They didn't change their mind, they didn't change their heart, they didn't change their passion, they didn't change a single thing about what they did and ultimately the money sucked away and it became exactly what it was before they started, and the debt ranged from $3,000 to $300,000, it was the same amount of debt, some were even more in debt 'cause they went cray-cray with the money. And there it is, right there people, the answer to your question is that simply shifts with you, and ah that is so powerful. What do I hate about my business? Write it down. You can do it tonight. I hate doing this, I hate doing that. Now as a creator, you need to outsource what you hate and stop doing it immediately. And trust me, that little voice that says but we can't afford to pay somebody else to do it, remember? Oh god, you're getting tiring again. That one, that voice there? You say to that voice you're the voice of negativity and self-hate, but right now I'm going to be creative and I'm gonna find a solution, and I bet you the answer to your problem is in the next conversation you have. And it's magic. It's always around you, the answer is right in front of you, you just haven't seen it yet. And it will appear, trust me. What I hate about my business. So I put this up on my first CreativeLive one year ago and I asked you to rate your business, and that's fine, but maybe I didn't help you understand a couple of things about this. When I say brand, marketing, Photoshop, production, shooting, sales, staff, and money, I'm asking you to just give me an overall where you're strong. So this is just what I showed, so you can just write those words, you can draw a line down the center of the page and draw three lines down the middle until you've got eight boxes, you can write brand, marketing, Photoshop, production, shooting, sales, staff and money. Perhaps I'll get Russ to make this a PDF so that you can do it, download it when you get the course. The thing is at the end of the day one of these avenues is stopping you from earning money. One of these avenues right here is stopping you, and one of them is blocked. Look at it like that, that it's a heart valve, there's eight valves, we need to get our heart beating and we need to get blood flowing, and one of those are stopping you. Who's brave enough to tell me which one of theirs is blocked? 'Cause I'll tell you where mine was blocked in the first year of my business. I was blocked on my marketing, couldn't put myself out there, crippled by the idea of selling myself and my work. My Photoshop was outstanding, I liked my brand, my production was half blocked because I hate it so much that I would have to make myself do it, so there were days where I wouldn't do it, I would avoid it, and then my production would wane and then I didn't get referrals. My shooting was open and flowing, my sales were blocked, constipated blocked. Going backwards blocked. Staff was open and flowing. I find it so easy to motivate others. Isn't that interesting, you have staff and I'll spend the whole time motivating them to do my work. (laughter) Money, money block, so my blocks were around marketing, sales, money, and a little half block on production just because I don't enjoy doing it, so I fixed the production block by hiring somebody to do it, I fixed the marketing block by hiring somebody to do it and confronting it in myself because I didn't just expect that person to do it, I did it with them. I completely opened my sales and my money blocks last, and then money just flowed in the door and I changed nothing else. So you've got a microphone over there. I hate Photoshop. Do you? I hate it. You hate it. And yet I pay a girl $20 an hour to do my Photoshop now, and she asks me for work. I've got another girl that I trained myself in New Zealand, I FTP it to New Zealand, and she rung me the other day and she was like Sue, I worked for you for three years, now I wanna start my own retouching business, I just want photographers to send me their work. And I find photographers won't pay retouches, do you know why? 'Cause they don't wanna part with the money. Yeah you're right, but when you hate it, trust me, you'll pass it over in a heartbeat. Right now, and I'm not doing any Photoshop other than the Photoshop I do for my own personal self, and I love it. Okay, so yeah, I'm good, I hate Photoshop, good girl, get a t-shirt. (laughter) Amanda. So my brand, great, I think it's wonderful, my marketing, I'm on top of Google everywhere, they find me everywhere, Photoshop, I'm not as fast as I'd like to be, but I'm not slow. But you're not blocked. No, I'm not blocked at all. My production, I mean it's great, there's no stopping there. My shooting has gotten tremendously better this year. Sales, my thing. Blocked. Money my thing. Staff, I don't have it 'cause I don't like dealing with people. So when you say sales my thing, money my thing, good or not good? Not good. Not good, okay, so let's look at that in terms of flow, this is how basic it is. You've got a brand, people will come to you, you're marketing yourself, so then you get bums on seats, you can Photoshop and shoot the work, that's not a problem, and then you're producing it. Your biggest problem then is selling it, you don't have staff so that doesn't count, selling it and earning money, so all I have to do is shift your money block and you're making money. Because you're already there. It's huge. Yeah. This is where I should be, this is where I'm at. Taking that jump to see-- Your money block, mine was huger. (laughter) Yeah, you think you got a huge one? Mine was huge. Huge, like I didn't think anything was gonna shift my money block. My biggest blocks would be marketing and sales. Marketing and sales. Putting myself out there. So that means putting yourself out there as confidence, and sales as value. So confidence is value, so you don't value yourself and you don't value what you do, so I'm gonna shift that tomorrow. That's basic to me, that money block, value block, this is easy stuff. The thing is what I never got about this, and this is just something really new to me, I didn't actually understand one thing. When you say I've got a block around money and I've got a block around value, I can actually tell you how I fixed mine. This isn't just a just do it, face it, I actually worked it out. I worked it out, I read books, I learned about business, I realized how much of my personal self I was pulling into business, and I realized how much of my personal self I was putting in my own blocks around my business. And then I thought wow, I'm not an operating business right now, I'm an operating business with a big Sue Bryce wedged in there in the middle that says you can't make any money, and I was the only one saying it. People were trying to pay me. That was the embarrassing thing. I was actually get it my own way. So that's an easy one. See I can identify that, there is nothing on there that I can't identify. Someone throw me, I know that there's somebody sitting there going yeah, but she doesn't have that and I've got that and so it's not really my fault. Go on, give it to me. Kids. Oh I don't have-- Got you, got you. (laughter) Who's the smarter one here? (laughter) I think I'm my biggest block. You are. It's not believing in myself, not thinking I'm cute enough, good enough, pretty enough, gorgeous enough, whatever I can come up with to knock myself down. And my family, not having the studio, not having the nice studio, I keep blocking myself that way. Yeah, great, that's an easy one, I can fix that one. Well let's do it. (laughter) We are gonna do it. This is the most significant thing that I experienced this year, and I'm 41. So I went away at Christmas time, and I got given a book, and it's called There's Nothing Wrong With You. Now I read a lot of self help books. I love anything non-fiction. Whether it's self help, motivation, mind power, learning, business, anything I can read non-fiction, I wanna hear it. I read this book There's Nothing Wrong With You and it's about self-hate. She said you learnt this pattern when you're a child about self-hate, the bad voice, you're not good enough, that voice, and she tells you how to turn it off. And all of a sudden I found myself seven weeks over Christmas and I just turned off the voice that I live with, the one that I fight in my business, and I realized self-hate was making my business decisions, my relationship decisions, my food choices, everything. I was living through that voice constantly and I just learned to turn it off. Cheri Huber is her name. It is one of the most significant healing books I've ever read in my life. I then realized when you remove that voice there is actually no such thing as fear. What is fear anyway? I'll tell you what fear is, biologically we have a fight or flight response right? As human beings. So we're in danger, you fight or you run. And you get adrenaline in your body to do both. I'm a trained martial artist, I know when to run, when to fight, I know what that adrenaline feels like 'cause I've fought in belts in competition. I know what that feels like, your body is empowered, can run faster, lift things, you save a child, fight for your life if you're ever in those situations. But when people talk constantly about fear I'm like what is that, I don't know what that is. I would confront it if somebody bloody told me what it is, like I would market myself but I'm afraid, no, you need to change that fear word to hate. I would market myself, but I go into this self-hate because that's my pattern. Whenever I don't think I'm good enough for something I just hate on myself because that's what I developed and now it's what I know and I hate hate hate hate hate and as soon as the hate word's coming I can't operate as a human being, and I certainly can't operate in business and I certainly can't manifest wealth or make anything incredible, that book significantly changed my life. I managed to build a $2 million studio in three years operating from complete self-hate, don't worry, you can be successful with a self-hating voice, but it is defeating and it is painful and it is just wrong and it stops you from earning money and it stops you from being good enough, and it stops you from being successful and having love and giving love and being a good person to yourself. And you might have just a little bit of self-hate, you might have huge amount of self-hate. Some people identify a lot more than others and some of you might be like I don't have any self-hate at all, no negative voice whatsoever, wonderful, I'm sure you will somewhere have a little voice that nibbles away at you in some area of your life, maybe it's not business, maybe it's relationships or whatever, blame your parents, but at the end of the day that's exactly what she says in the book. You learn this pattern as a child, we're doing it to our children now, it's just the way it is, it's human nature, so what you need to do is just learn about it, learn to be aware of it, learn to turn it off. So I had this thing. I love doing this thing here where I'm speaking and teaching, and then afterwards I go into quite a dark place for a period of time, maybe a day or two days, and I realized when I read the book, and then I tell myself I didn't do very well, I didn't speak very well, and I wasn't very good, and then I'll see a bad photo on Facebook of myself from the stage and I'll think oh and I looked really old and fat and I start hammering, hammer hammer hammer. And then what happens is I start telling myself that the experience was really bad for me and that I shouldn't speak anymore and I'm not good enough to be standing up there, and even though I've got 12,000 e-mails saying you just changed my life, all I'm hearing is you're not good enough to be there. So I realized when I read that book that what happens is when I get tired, and I've been through those talks, I'm very hard on myself in terms of did I reach my expectations, did I please everybody in the crowd, did I please the audience out there, did I achieve what I wanted to achieve? I realized my self-hate came in then and the voice inside was telling me that it wasn't a good experience, but the truth is that it was an incredible experience. But I started to be hard on myself and this pattern kicked in, so when I came back from my break I weirdly had lost like 10 pounds because I had stopped hating myself, and so I just forgot about hating my body for seven weeks and I just lost weight, everyone kept saying you've lost so much weight and I was like I don't know why, I'm just walking and doing normal stuff and trying not to eat bread. Then I went and did a talk at Mystic, and afterwards I actually for the first time consciously heard that negative voice come into my life in my hotel room after my talk and I stopped and I went like this. Ah there it is. And instead of just saying, going bang bang bang bang and then feeding on that, I stopped and went oh, okay, I know what that is, but it's okay, I did really well and I'm gonna congratulate myself instead of hammering myself, and the voice just went away. Then I went to bed for the first time and I woke up in the morning and I woke up fully engaged in the energy of what I'd given and what I enjoyed, I went down and spent the day with the photographers at Mystic, I loved meeting them and asking them questions and I didn't go into that place of ego, and I didn't go into that place of hate, and then it just flowed open for me and for the first time in my life I counteracted it. And you can just turn it off. And she teaches you how. And it's freeing and it's the most freeing moment I've ever had in my life, and if that is not a good endorsement for that book. (laughter) And you know what, Cheri, how about call me? 'Cause I'd love to catch up on lunch sometime. And the truth is at the end of the day I realize now that everything that we do comes down to just that simple negative voice that starts eating away at you and telling you you're not good enough, telling you you're wrong, telling you you're not smart enough, telling you you're not pretty enough, you're not gorgeous enough, I mean whatever. What a load of shit, and the worst thing is the best part about that is you're in your ego when you think that, so what you want is for me to tell you you are good enough and pretty enough, but guess what? Self-hate will beat your ego every single time, self-hate will win over anything that I say to you anyway, so I can validate the hell out of you and it will be gone in a day. Gone. Everything I've said will be gone 'cause it wasn't the truth to you. It was my truth, and I can say it as many times as I want, you're good enough, you're good enough, you're good enough, for god's sake! You don't even have to tell yourself you're good enough, you just have to tell yourself stop telling yourself you're not good enough, remember? It's that simple. And then it changes everything. It just turns off. Anybody ask any questions about that? It's pretty full on right? And personally, for me, it's a big thing to say. Yes, I have experienced self-hate. All my life. And I thought I was dark and bad and weird and not good enough, and I thought I was old and fat and everything else, and then I found out that everybody feels the same way. (laughter) And that we're all dark and weird and old and fat eventually. (laughter) And that that's okay. And when you discover that, you're free of that. Free forever, if you monitor that voice. And it changes everything. I've looked for that answer my whole life and it was just right there in a book. She just wrote it out and it talks about it from childhood right through. It even says at some point in your thirties, forties, and fifties, when we get emotional we revert to being children and we want mom and dad to fix us. And at some stage in your life you actually have to acknowledge that a parent may not have loved you in the way that you wanted to and you should just let that go 'cause they're not going to now in your forties, fifties, and sixties. It's time to grow up and love yourself. So to me, I do not care how many people tell me right now that that is not true. 'Cause I've experienced it for myself, I don't care how many people challenge that, and I'll say you know what, I've been to consultations, I've been to businesses and businesses and businesses and I can tell you right now people's businesses are running in direct proportion to how they feel about themselves. You raise your self-value, your business value goes up. And that's how you do it. Any questions? We definitely have questions online if there's none here in the audience. Simone K is saying Sue, what if you're talented but you have no pleasure anymore? How do you find that pleasure again? That's a good one. Well it means you're talented, it means you've mastered what you're doing and you need to go and master something new. Okay, so I'm sitting on the border now of I'm a little bit over glamour photography. It's quite easy. I'm handing it over to you guys 'cause I've enjoyed it for 23 years, I'm kinda done. Mastered it. Doesn't thrill me anymore. Oh no. But that's what happens right? It's your turn. Go and thrill yourself, thrill millions of people, go create beautiful images, connect with women, make money, build a business, be proud of yourself, learn what I've learnt. It's time for me to master something new. And I'm now at the stage where I'm like what should I do? What should I do? I can do anything I want. For the first time in my life I have that option. And I'm like wow, so it's time to master something new. And just because you've mastered something doesn't mean you have to stay with it. And maybe as you were mastering something you decided that you saw a different path than there, how's this? Last year, one of the girls from my first workshop in LA three years ago, two years ago, came to Australia and assisted me for 10 weeks. And the first week she was there I said, tomorrow we're gonna do this, I said to her I want you to write your highest values. I'm gonna show you how to do this so that I can get your true path out. And she was like okay, and I said by the time you leave in 10 weeks I want you to tell me what they are, and your new business will be around that and it's not gonna be photography. She was like how do you know that and I said just my intuition. I just want you to work with it. She worked through her intuition, she worked through her highest values over 10 weeks. And she's come back to America and started a business and it's not photography. And she said you're right, photography is a component in my business, but it is not the function. And she said it's not even what I'm passionate about, and she said and yet I was so confused 'cause I was so drawn to you and now I realize why, 'cause you freed me into my true path. Just because you said look at your highest value and free yourself into your truth path. And it might not be photography, but you were drawn into it for a reason. It might be part of it, but not the function. So we're gonna talk about this more tomorrow 'cause I'm gonna hit you hard with those questions, that is a big one, I need to know where the blocks are in your business. And thank you for bringing that up, Kelly, about your personal blocks, but I still want you to rate your physical blocks, and those there are all physical actions. Those are not personal blocks, those are physical blocks. Sorry, you've got a question? Actually going back to the blocks, I understand all of them except the money part. Are you talking about money because we all want money, and we wanna-- Your ability to manage it. Okay. So there's two types of people in this world, there's spenders and savers. My brother is a saver and I'm a spender. The only way as a spender you can become wealthy is to earn more money than you spend. (laughter) Which is why I am always working. My brother is a saver, a natural born saver. My brother and his wife, they've got like two pairs of shoes. Two each, work shoes, running shoes, I'm like where are all your shoes, they're like what do we wanna buy shoes for? What a waste of money. (laughter) Lock the wardrobe when they come over. And the idea of course is that's my brother, he's frugal, he's smart, he owns three houses, I don't. You're either a saver or a spender. But the problem is savers and spenders can still manifest wealth and still become wealthy, you just have to work out what you are, but I need to know if money's a problem for you. I need to know if you are spending everything you've got or if money comes easily to you. I need to know what your block is around money and I need to know your block around money management, and I need to know your block around receiving money, now this is a really interesting thing and I am gonna talk about that. I wanna go into money big time tomorrow, but one of the things is I have a friend that doesn't receive money. Now if you look at your hands like this, it's called left for leaving, right for receiving. Left, L, for leaving, right for receiving. And if you put your hands down and up like that, the left hand leaves money and the right hand receives money. Left for leaving, right for receiving, that's the polarity with which all life works. Everything is 50/50. A 50/50 exchange, so if you can't receive, you can leave but not receive and that tells me you're losing money. So I had to learn not to leave money 'cause I'm generous to a fault, but I'm not very good at receiving money and receiving money was valuing what I do, receiving it, and saying thank you because until you learn to receive it and look someone in the eye and say thank you, without that anxiety of not being able to price it or value it, until you learn that, it is not an equal exchange. And I wanna talk more about that 'cause that is a big shift in consciousness. When you realize that you can leave but not receive money, you now need to start receiving it, and you know when somebody goes oh I owe you $20, I'll give that to you now and you go no, don't worry about it, and they go no, I owe you $20 and you go honestly, don't worry about it. And then they go Sue, here's $20, I owe it to you, and you go okay, and you take it the third time, but you get the people where you go I owe you $20, you go don't worry about it, they go oh thanks and you think... (laughter) And then I thought when my friends say I owe you 20 bucks I go sweet. I used to say don't worry about it and they'd go okay. I'd be like what? You're supposed to force money on me. Well nobody's gonna do that, you receive it and you say thank you, how many people do that? It's a good one, that one, isn't it? Don't worry about it, don't worry about it, don't worry about it. Okay, fine, and you think oh my god. (laughter) Well next time say thank you, they owe you money. What are you, stupid? Once you learn that it changes everything. Changes everything. To me, the rating of the business is really, the rating of the business right now is about just putting it all out there, what we gotta work on, what we're gotta tick off, what we gotta check off that list, and as I reveal the challenges over the four weeks I'm going to return to that list because that list there is operating above the 28 challenges. You guys have got a lot of work to do this month because those 28 challenges are rolling out every morning and I'm gonna make sure that these checklists here that you're working on are getting worked on at the same time. 'Cause you cannot be not achieving all of this, I want you to come back to here, I wanna make sure that you have got a clear communication in your business card, an e-mail PDF, an elevator pitch, and a portfolio on your iPhone. Just for starters, and getting your elevator pitch right down to how much it costs, getting your price list right down, you need to refine all of these right now and work through this list as best you can on top of the 28 challenges. 'Cause this is basic business 101 and this will change your structure and change your world. Does everyone agree with that? Everyone feel the same way? Is there anything that you don't agree with? Thank you, I absolutely agree. Where my struggle is, whether it's this or in our 28 days, is figuring out the balance of it, and especially what, not to sweat the small stuff, what to let go, so I can focus more on what's most important. I feel like right now I have to do everything. So form follows function, ultimately what happens is you need to decide whether you're fixing your website because your ego doesn't like it, or whether it's just not functional. So if my website is functional I don't need to change it. It's working for me. I need to work on the areas that are not functional. So pull away from the ego or I wanna be better or look better or look like I'm a better photographer just for one minute and say is that functional to my client's, and if it's not, fix it, and if it is functional, what's broke don't fix it, not broke, don't fix it. Just stay away from there, and if you find yourself in the ego where you just wanna look better and be better, that won't make you more money anyway, so what you need to do is focus on the functionality of everything you're doing, and the functionality being the clear communication, is it accurately talking about what I wanna do, is it saying what I wanna say, is it simplified, is it easy to understand, am I making it easy for people to spend money with me? Once you work that out, then you will come from a place not of trying to fix the ego, but of a place of just the function, that's all it is, I want you to focus on the function of this list. And just as Sue said, it's gotta be functional and clear. It does not have to be fancy. It just has to be functional and clear. Really important. Great, thank you. Any other questions in the audience while we've got a microphone in there? We'll go to our break. Any other questions online that you would like to-- I do, I do, because this is getting deep. Okay. So with regard though to these blocks, Addie Churos from Vancouver says how about the people that have no business at this moment? How can I have one of those blocks when I don't even have a business yet? Well you can. So maybe your block is starting your business. I would say just to keep the rating list and as you build your business I want you to open eight channels. You won't have staff, so seven channels, and just monitor where they're blocking up. Because as soon as you start working towards having a brand, a product, a service, and then putting it out there, you have a business, and even if you're a part time photographer you're still getting paid, so you're still in business, and so really you have started that, and if you haven't started that yet, if you're about to, just understand one thing, there are only eight channels to wealth in a business, and there are only eight ways to block it and that's it right there. Because I built my business, and other than my personal self, nine, there are only nine channels to blocking my wealth. And that's it. There's no secret here. You can say it's the economy, but that exists in the personal, wouldn't you say that's in your personal belief? You can say it's your small town, but that exists in your marketing, your creativity, or your ability to think outside that square, you can say it's staff and blame someone else, but you can fire them and move on. Don't tell me that that's not it, one of those blocks will exist somewhere to stop you from making money through your business, it's that simple, I broke it down into nine channels, and that is my photography business right there and then, and the only other one in there is me rating myself and I'm gonna do that tomorrow. And I'm gonna tell you why, when I changed what I changed, it opened everything for me 'cause I was the biggest block in my business. And ironically it was me stopping the marketing and the sales and the money. So once you work on yourself, then the marketing and the sales and money, straight through, open channel. So Sue, I asked folks In the Facebook group, In Bed With Sue, which by the way if you're not in there go join that group In Bed With Sue on Facebook, I asked them about what their blocks were, and so I just wanted to read some of those off to you. Sure. Emily Rose McGonigle says sales, marketing, and value. I just had a client contact me about doing a shoot for her, and I was so scared to tell her my price, but then when I did it was nothing to her. We ended up scheduling two different types of shoots, and the second time around I more confidently gave her my pricing and again it was no sweat for her. I'm my own block with marketing and sales and value because I'm so scared to push myself out there and feel like I'm worth it and I have been there. I'll bet all of us have been there. Lots of heads nodding. When you actually get it out there and the client just says oh yeah, great. And you're like oh, it was me. It was me, yeah. It's always you. It's never anybody else. Blame as many people as you want, but hold the mirror up. Emily Dire Hone in that same group says I could do everything, but I just have a fear of interacting with people, I have become such an introvert. Getting past that fear is a big issue, I know we hear a lot of people who say that. Yeah, so basically fear in dealing with people would be, it'll come down to one thing, judge by them or there'll be one common fact there that she has to really overcome in her personal self. I would go to self-hate with that one, I would go straight to my personal self with that one because a fear of people or a fear of putting yourself out there can become really crippling, and agoraphobic, and it's really easy to become introverted, but the truth is that there is no fear 'cause fear doesn't exist anyway. There's only fight or flight fear. What she is doing is when she goes to put herself out there she's consuming herself in enough self-hate to pull her right back from even stepping forward, so she's crippling herself right from that start out point which is just, it's too easy to do and everybody does it too and it crazy. Heather Tawn says a lot of the same thing, Heather Tawn here says marketing me. I can sell sand to the desert, but it's not sand I created, so I can do it, but when it comes to my work I feel 100% timid. Yes, so it means two things, it means you're operating from that intense self-hate where you're just barraging yourself with bad so that you can't bring the good forward, or you're operating from a place of ego, so you're telling me that it's because you can't sell yourself, because you just can't, but the truth is you're looking for validation. So everybody does this, it's a horrible thing, I did it for many years. The validation you require is ego instead of service, so you're out looking to be good enough, and you need to stop doing that 'cause it drives money from you, that is the biggest, ego is the biggest repeller of money in the universe. Yup. Kimberly Yanick Thompson says she has four, brand, sales, marketing, and cash, but what is strange is that my shooting seems to be starting to block up. I'm making such silly mistakes shooting. Never had that before. Well you can only be constipated for so long before everything starts getting blocked up. (laughter) And at the end of the day if you've got four pipes are blocked, the other four are gonna start choking up as well. Okay, so again, she's gotta come right back to falling back in love with shooting instead of being in a place where she's that blocked up, so if she's got four blocks, that would be sales, marketing, money, and production, is that right? Brand, sales, marketing, and money. Brand, marketing, sales, and money, okay. I would probably hazard a guess that she's actually not that into her shooting at all anyway because if she was her brand would look good because she would be showing her images that she's loved from the past. So Emily, I would work right back on falling in love with your shooting, and then start putting that straight up into your brand, and then start producing that love of brand and shooting into your marketing, and then your sales will reflect that when you shift your own personal value. Same thing, it's just a pattern and everyone's hitting one nerve, right? Everybody's got a nerve that's getting twanged and we're all going eh and it's horrible and it doesn't feel good and you know it's gonna be right there, but guess what, that's it, you met your block today and now you can fix it. You met your block, that's the only thing standing in your way. The only thing standing in your way. And I always think to myself imagine having the life that you dreamed of. And I do. For the first time in my life. I realized the other day I have an incredible life. For the first time ever I stopped getting in my own way and I love it. It just exploded and that's all I did.