As photographers, we are a strange breed of people who are generally artists, trying to figure out a business. As artists, we tend to be more bleeding hearts, ruled by emotion over logic. Now, this is a generalization and if doesn’t apply to you, great! You’re a step ahead of the rest of us. But for those of us who let our feelings rule, we often let that guide how we run our business, especially when it comes to the money side of things. There are so many money mind blocks for photographers that we often fall into that keep us from running our business like a business, and today I want to challenge them.

I want to go over once again why this is so important before I dive in.

The main point of a business is to trade services or a product for income. No matter what your financial situation is, if we didn’t need to make a living, we probably wouldn’t be running a business. Whether your income is the main source in your household, a supplemental income, or just for “fun” money, the goal is to earn something. If it wasn’t, we’d offer it for free or we wouldn’t offer it at all.

Running a business is hard work. So many people jump into photography because its fun, low barrier to entry and seems pretty simple. Book clients, shoot, edit, deliver, repeat. But we quickly find out there is so much more to it. At the very least, you also need to market yourself and take care of your books. But generally if you’re doing those things, there’s about 7000 little background things you’re doing as well.

People don’t go into business to make minimum wage, because the work is worth more than that. So, as photographers who often choose our pricing when starting out based on “what feels right”, when we come face-to-face with the reality of the cost of our business and what we’re earning, it can be shocking. The problem with not earning a liveable wage as photographer, beyond the obvious, is photographers who are too cheap often get burnt out easily, which leads to a worse experience for the clients we are trying to hard to serve. It usually doesn’t take too long before people realize this and start considering raising their prices to be profitable.

But this is when all the mind blocks we have around money start. Photography should be accessible to everyone. No one is going to pay that much for my art. I don’t want to work with rich people, they’re selfish and snobby.

Whatever your mind block is, you’re not the only one who’s felt this way.

We often get in our own way and let what our brains perceive to be true limit us or call the shots, despite the fact that it’s not actually true. I personally had all these thoughts, and more, when I first started photography. I never thought in a million years I could book a client for $500. Now most of my clients spend $2500 or more. I thought rich people would be hard to work with and not as pleasant, but it turns out that people who value photography, whether affluent or just willing to spend the money, are genuinely lovely, and I’ve adored working with my clients over the years.

So when you’re looking at your numbers and thinking, “there’s no way” for whatever reason, that you can charge a profitable rate so that you can earn a living wage, I want you to do three things.

1. I want you to stop and identify that thought.
2. I want you to think about whether the thought is actually true. Challenge it. See if you can come up with 2-3 pieces of evidence against it.
3. I want you to re-frame that thought with what IS true.

When I started charging higher rates and serving a luxury client, one big thing that got in my way was the idea that if I suddenly was earning enough money for the lifestyle I dreamed of, I would become selfish and spend my money wastefully. When I noticed this kept coming up for me, here’s what I did.

1. I stopped. I noticed it and flipped it around in my brain. Asked myself where this came from and identified it’s root.
2. I considered all the kind and generous people I know who have their financial needs met. I thought of lovely people I know who give generously of their time and money.
3. I replaced that thought with the idea that money doesn’t change a persons values, and that if I earned more, I could give more and be more generous than I currently was.

It takes a lot of effort to think like business people when we’re artists at heart. But don’t those beautiful emotions that drive your art keep you from the lifestyle you dream of. Your time and talent are worth it, and the work that your business involves should bring you a living wage, at the very least.

Need some help working through your money mind blocks? Join my free Facebook group for Virtual IPS Photographers to tackle some of the things that hold us back from taking the steps toward profitability!