Today we are diving into the NUMBER 1 thing we did that grew our businesses the MOST. If you’re ready to see your business TAKE OFF and go from 1 to 100 REAL fast, sit tight, and do not move! This episode is a behind the scenes look into our top recommendation for ANY business owner to grow fast and skip all the potential roadblocks awaiting you on the way.

 

You obviously wanna know the number 1 thing to grow your business. So what is it??

It’s not crushing it on Instagram.

It’s not doing more photoshoots.

It’s not even being the best and most brilliant business mind in the world.

Drumroll please….It’s investing.

 

There are ways to invest with money, time, and resources and we are going to talk about it all! 

If you want something to grow and succeed you HAVE to first invest in it. This just means putting your time, effort, and hard earned cash towards something you want to succeed. In order to do that you have to have confidence in it. If you’re trying to grow a business but are afraid to put forth any time or money into it, it’s not gonna go anywhere.

Invest in what you want to see grow. You can’t grow a business without investing in it. Period.

You can invest in two ways: with either your time or your money. 

 

Education

Paid

• Courses
• Business coaching/one-on-one mentorships
• Conferences
• Workshops
• Membership sites
• Masterminds
• Paid digital downloads/guides
• Books

 

Free (investing time)

• Social media content – pay attention to business educators that you follow that are giving you education through their captions and stories. 
• Podcasts
• Free webinars
• Free digital downloads
• Blogs
• Youtube videos
• Community – Connecting with others and learning together/from each other. A great example is Tuesdays Together

 

Reinvesting in the business

This means strategically using the money you are getting and putting it back into your business to grow it. 

• Gear. Most photographers start out with dinky cameras. As you grow, put money aside, and use it to invest in nicer gear. This can also mean material to create your products. You can also reinvest your money to purchase a laptop or anything else to run day to day operations. 
• Website
• Graphic Design/Logos
• Warehouse, etc (product-based business) 
• Team member(s)
• CRM or systems for the backend, such as Honeybook
• Client experience (Gifts, packaging, etc)
• Advertising
• Opportunities (i.e. traveling to become a travel photographer)

 

What’s the point?

Point blank, investing speeds up the process to success. You can find just about anything you want on the internet these days. It will just take you a long time. If you dig hard enough and dig deep enough, you can probably find anything you want on the internet for free. 1So why invest? Investing speeds up the process because you are learning from someone who came before you. You can learn specifically from those who have gone before and tried and failed so you don’t have to. If you want to make money faster, investing is the way to go. 

It’s so important in any area of life, but especially as business owners and entrepreneurs, that if we are asking customers to spend money on us, then we need to be willing to spend money on ourselves. If you expect other people to invest in you, you have to believe in yourself enough to invest that money back in yourself. We need to constantly be trying to improve. It is so helpful to learn from someone and work with someone who has already walked that road and gone where you want to go. 

Pretend you’re 5. Could you learn how to ride a bike without training wheels? Sure. Would it take forever? Probably. You would probably be so scared so you would avoid it, and if you did have the guts to try, you’d get pretty banged up trying to learn on your own.

Now put a parent beside you. They’ve set up the training wheels and they’re helping you learn on those. Then, when you’re ready, they take those off and just walk beside you. If you start heading off track, they’ve got you. When you’re finally ready to go on your own you don’t have 3 concussions, 2 broken bones, and a hefty fear of bicycles.

As entrepreneurs, investing in education does not mean that you aren’t a good business person or that you are a failure. It’s easy to feel that if you learn from somebody you are admitting that you don’t know something. The fact is, none of us know everything. It almost makes you a better business owner to have the humility to admit that you can’t do it on your own and that you are willing to accept help. 

 

Evie’s Example:

Evie Invested in a mentor. She mainly invested time because she didn’t know paid mentors, coaches, courses, or workshops existed until way later. She shot 20+ weddings with her as she learned how to be a wedding photographer. It was the best thing she did for her business! 

She ate up every free resource she could. Evie moved back in with her parents so she could save and reinvest everything back into my business. In the first couple of years, she invested all of her money straight back into her business such as new gear, paying for Honeybook, website, etc. Evie used her own hard-earned cash from working at the restaurant to travel the country offering free or discounted shoots to break into the destination market. 

She wishes she had known about workshops, coaches, etc back when she was starting. But now? She invests in coaches, courses, resources, etc. as much as possible! Never ever ever ever stop learning and growing.

 

Lindsey’s Example

Lindsey invested in as many free resources as she could! The couple of online courses she took at the very beginning gave her such a great foundation and headstart to start off on the best foot possible.

They lived off her husband’s income only, purely so she could reinvest money she was making back into her business. Any money she made, she used to get a better lens, an upgraded website, a new logo, and more resources to help her such as Honeybook, a gallery host, etc. Eventually, she started outsourcing and hiring team members to help her in her business.

 

When should you stop investing in your business?

NEVER EVER EVER.

You should ALWAYS be learning and growing. There’s ALWAYS more to learn.

Examples:

You may be a successful photographer and have a good amount of clients and inquiries. You may still feel a little stuck and like you’ve hit the ceiling and you don’t know where to go or what to do from there. You’ve “arrived” but you know you really haven’t. There’s more. What do you do? INVEST IN YOURSELF.

Invest in a business coach, life coach, masterminds, online courses, etc. There is ALWAYS more to learn, ESPECIALLY as you uplevel. There is never a stopping point for investing in yourself and your business. This isn’t just if you are newer to business, this is for any human who is an entrepreneur. Investing is vital to consistent growth.

It’s really dangerous as human beings to feel like we arrived and have all the answers. That is probably our number one enemy to our growth. That is such a lie and it puts a gate in front of us on the road to success. There is always more and it’s important that if you feel like you’ve arrived to knock down that gate and keep going. Don’t let your own pride get in the way. 

There’s one small caveat. Don’t go into debt for your business. Don’t do it. Grow bit by bit. Use what you do have, save, and invest in what you can. In the beginning, if that looks like consuming all the free resources and content you can while saving up for a paid offer, great. You’re still investing your TIME!

 

Show Notes

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We’re hosting a live 5 Day Lightroom Editing Challenge!!! We’re going to be diving into the nitty gritty on how we use Lightroom to edit our photos, how we import, cull, backup our photos, navigate Lightroom. The WHOLE 9 yards. We’ve NEVER taught a free training on editing before so if you’ve wanted to learn editing from us, NOW is the time. The challenge is going to start Monday August 3 and go til Friday August 7th. To sign up for our Lightroom Editing Challenge go to www.theheartuniversity.com/challenge and let’s get our editing on!