What can photographers learn from the Olympics?
There’s obviously a lot to be learned when it comes to business operations and professionalism, but in this video I talk about three things athletes do that photographers can apply in their photography business. If you apply all three of these, it’s absolutely going to make a big difference to the success of your business.
Here’s a PDF worksheet to go with this video for photographers:
Click here or on the image below to download a PDF worksheet that complements the above video:
Video transcript – What can photographers learn from the Olympics:
Hi, I’m Darryl Stringer, photography coach and marketing expert at Build A Photography Business.com.
Here’s a question for you –
What can photographers learn from the Olympics? Now obviously there is a lot to be learned in terms of dedication and hard work, but here are three that I’d like to focus on, and the first one is this … numbers.
Ask any Olympic athlete and they’ll be able to tell you their numbers. Perhaps it’s their personal best performance, or the time they think they’ll need to win gold, or the number of calories they need to consume, or whatever.
Athletes know their numbers, but as a photographer, do you know your numbers? Can you tell me how many dollars you did in sales last week, and the average dollar value of those shoots? Can you tell me your profit margin as a percentage, and can you tell me how many potential clients you’ve contacted this month?
You should … you should. In fact, at the end of every Friday or first thing every Monday morning, you should be going through your numbers, tracking all of them, and calculating how you performed compared to your target. If you don’t know those numbers, including what you actually did and what your target number is, then you won’t know what needs changing, and if you don’t change, you will not be the best you can be.
So my first recommendation is to be like an Olympian and know all your critical numbers.
The second one is … Invest.
The most successful nations and individuals invest in themselves with both time and money. It’s really interesting to look at which countries are the most successful in the Olympics, and it’s the countries that provide the most funding to their Olympic athletes that are the most successful.
One example of that is Great Britain, who won just 28 medals at the Sydney Games and 30 at Athens. However, following London’s selection for the 2012 Olympic Games and a massive injection of extra funding, Great Britain’s tally jumped up to 47 at Beijing, and then 65 at London. That’s what extra funding can do for athletes …
… and I would suggest the same is true for photographers.
When it comes to investing time into your development, I would encourage you to set aside a training session every week or each fortnight to review what you’re doing, and implement a new plan if targets are not being reached.
I know it’s hard, but natural talent for photography is rarely enough – you need to invest in yourself, just like a top athlete, to reach peak performance and maximum sales figures. Again, I’m talking about the investment of time, and money. And you might need to invest in the next thing too …
Because the third one is … team.
All of the athletes have a team of support staff to help them with training, diet, travel, psychology … you can’t be an Olympic athlete on your own, it’s impossible, and you can’t be the best photographer you can be on your own either.
If you want to reach your full potential as a photographer and as a business owner, you need a team around you, and maybe there’s something I can do for you, because I help architectural and real estate photographers to improve their photography and editing skills, I’ll give you a fully-written marketing program, and together we’ll build a more profitable photography business.
[Note: you can take a look at my training program with a behind-the-scenes video that’s also here on my blog.]If that’s something that could help you then get in touch with me, and I can tell you more about my coaching program.
Here’s the thing, and this is what I’d like you to take away from today:
I want to see you be like a champion athlete, and I want to see you to step up another level and look at your numbers, invest in yourself, and get a team around you that will help you reach your goals.
I’ll see you next time. Bye for now.