Mind Your Own Business: Planning for 2021 and Beyond!

​By Chamira Young

“Growth only happens outside your comfort zone”

With February behind us and spring right around the corner, there's still plenty of time left to make the most of this year. If there's one thing we should be all doing, it's making strategic plans for our photography business. Given the challenges of the pandemic, it's more important than ever that we remain proactive - not reactive - in the practical actions we can take to build our network, serve our clients, and build our skillsets. It's for this very reason that Skip and I recently had a detailed discussion on the Mind Your Own Business podcast about what photographers can do to make 2021 (and 2022, actually) better than ever! 

You can listen to the full podcast episode here. We covered a ton of ground, so I advise you have to have paper and pen ready to take notes!

Here are the main points we discussed:

• The theme for 2021 is diversity in your specialty
• Diversity in your skillset
• Video and storytelling
• Clean up your website – bio and galleries
• Direct mail personal letter to all your clients
• Community involvement
• Keeping your website images fresh
• Online education
• Make yourself different from your competitors
• Polishing your online presence and looking good on camera for online meeting
• Your blog – More people are online than at any time in history – your blog has the potential to help you grow
• The importance of being helpful
• Alliances/partnerships with other artists
• Use the phone – talk to people
• Special offers and promotions
• Considering new gear you need to grow
• Get outside!

Listen to the full podcast here!