Today, Nathan Holritz — the owner and CEO of Photographer’s Edit and host of the photography podcast Bokeh — is on the show to share a little bit about his journey and why you need a Big Picture View to get the most out of your business and your life.
You don’t want to miss his thoughts on the difference between being a proactive vs. reactive business owner and how you can start implementing a big picture, proactive mindset in your business. It’s a game-changing perspective.
[Here are the highlights, but you can listen to the full conversation below or on the Momentum podcast.]
What’s Your Why?
Nathan entered the photography industry as a wedding photographer in 2001. Although he lost money on his first wedding, it went well and within two years, he was shooting 30-40 weddings a year. Like many wedding photographers, he found the post-production on that many weddings mind-numbing.
One of the things that he enjoyed most about being his own boss was the freedom and flexibility that it could offer, but with so much editing, he had very little free time for the people of things that he enjoyed.
Nathan encourages you to ask yourself, “Why? What drives you day to day?” For him, it’s time and relationships and it was because of these two things that he started Photographer’s Edit in 2008.
Since then, Nathan has prioritized having time to spend with friends and family and has made a big difference in the personal lives of thousands of photographers.
Knowing why you are doing what you are doing will help you prioritize the work that you need to do in your business and will define your business model. If you don’t have this Big Picture View, you will flounder and ultimately not succeed.
Be Proactive, Not Reactive
What does it mean to be proactive or reactive?
Proactive work is work that moves life and business forward, helps you reach your goals and increases your bottom line.
Reactive work includes all of the things that have to happen in your business but doesn’t increase your bottom line and in many cases, doesn’t have to be done by you.
An eye-opening exercise is to make a complete list of all of the things that you spend time doing on a daily basis and then mark them as either proactive or reactive. You will likely be surprised by how much time you are spending on reactive work.
By outsourcing the reactive work and focusing on proactive tasks, you will move your business forward. It’s easy to make a living as a photographer working 15-20 hours a week if you put the right systems in place.
Outsourcing
There are many areas of your photography that you can outsource or automate to free up time and be more efficient. However, we’re going to focus on editing here.
If you’re not outsourcing your editing, you should be. I understand that for many photographers this is a hard thing to let go of so again, I’m going to ask you to think about your ‘why’ and if spending 12-16 hours culling an editing a wedding moves you towards that or away from it.
If your ‘why’ doesn’t include having a life and time to spend with friends and family or freedom and flexibility, then keep editing, but if these things are important to you it might be time to let it go.
Photographer’s Edit offers a first-time customer discount of 40% and their system is SO easy to use. You’re able to give very specific instructions so that they can replicate your editing style and they will work with you to make sure that you are completely satisfied.
