• Home
  • About Sherry
  • Work with Sherry
    • Career Power Hour
    • Job Interview Power Hour
    • Job Search Confidence – land your dream job
    • VIP 1:1 Coaching
    • Women in Cyber Leadership programme
    • BOOK A CONVERSATION
  • Success stories
  • Resources
    • PODCAST
    • ONLINE COURSES
    • DOWNLOADS
    • • FREE Manage Your Career with Confidence and Purpose
    • • FREE 99 Action Verbs To Make Your CV Stand Out
    • • FREE The Ultimate Job Interview Checklist
    • • FREE 15 Tough Job Interview Questions & How To Answer Them
    • • FREE Women’s networking directory
  • The Book
    • About the book
    • Sample chapter and reading
    • About the author
    • Media
    • Interview with the author
  • Blog
  • Speaking
  • Contact Sherry

The Confident Mother

Helping ambitious women in technology fully unlock their leadership potential

11th September 2015

What advice would you give this photography business?

I wanted to share this with you … I talked to a mum today who has set up her own business, inspired by what she heard and learned during The Confident Mother. Amazing in itself, right?

Anyway, her business has now been running for 4 or 5 months … she’s a photographer, and she’s brilliant. She’ll be there at my book launch.

How mums in business get successful

This mum wanted to talked because she’s feeling overwhelmed. She’s trying to balance expanding her network of “mummy” contacts (toddler groups, pre-schools etc) to get more family portrait photography to bring in income while really wanting to do what for her is more creatively satisfying i.e. commercial product photography. However to get those jobs you need to demonstrate experience, build an impressive portfolio, nurture a different set of contacts. She was struggling to know how to market her services to two different audiences.

What do you want to be known for

We talked about her photography style … she doesn’t do ‘ordinary’ portrait photography. She enjoys photography which is more creative, more arty – family photos outside or in black & white. She recognises that she needs to stand out when she talks to people. To tell more people what she does. To have a ‘sticky’ story so that she is remembered more easily. To become known for a type of photography.

It is hard at the beginning of any business journey. She is absolutely passionate about photography. She didn’t consider herself ambitious when she had a corporate career but as a photographer, she wants to stand out. She wants to be noticed. She wants to be the best she can be. And that’s her passion talking, and I love it!

Get clear on your business goals

We discussed her business goals because when you run a business, it’s important to get really clear on your business goals. In other words what do you want to achieve and why’s it important to you. That clarity can make all the difference.

Focus on ONE thing at a time

Then we talked about focusing on just ONE thing at a time. In the early stages of your business, it almost doesn’t matter which thing, as long as it is ONE thing. Ask yourself every day “what’s the one thing I can do today to get me closer to my goal“.

Check out Gary Keller and Jay Papasan’s book The One Thing. Or check out one of the many interviews with Jay Papasan on YouTube.

Deal with the overwhelm

As for dealing with the overwhelm, this is what I tell all my clients:

  • Focus on the quick wins.
  • Block out time in your diary dedicated to specific activities.
  • Take ‘me’ time and look after yourself.
  • Declutter your brain: take a blank piece of paper and offload your thoughts, ideas onto that blank piece of paper.

If you would like more ideas on how to deal with overwhelm, you’ll love my action sheet in which I share more ways to deal with overwhelm so you can get more done.

How it worked out 

Towards the end of the conversation, Michelle said to me “It’s been so helpful to talk this through. I’m feeling so much more control already.”  (By the way if you like the sound of talking through your overwhelm, you can book a complimentary call with me too).

UPDATE:  three years later and how did it work out for Michelle? Well, her business is booming – check it out here.

She’s done a couple of photoshoots for me; she’s worked with elite cyclist Alex Dowsett; she’s worked with a few of my small business clients; she’s covered several events for Heart Valve Voice including climbing to the top of O2 and St Paul’s Cathedral, and so much more.

Because good things happen to those mums in business who cut through the overwhelm, get clear on their goals and focus on just one thing at a time.

p.s. if you are thinking about launching a photography business, check out this article from ShootDotEdit on How to start a photography business. 

Article by Sherry Bevan / Overwhelm, Small business Leave a Comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Subscribe to Blog

Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email.

Looking for something?

Categories

Archives

Recent posts

  • What I’ve learned about how to be successful
  • How to job search successfully on LinkedIn
  • How to be sure that your employer values you
  • How to articulate your ambitions to protect your gender pay gap
  • How to protect your career falling foul of the gender pay gap

Copyright © 2022 · The Confident Mother · Website design by Helen Taranowski Design