042 - Are You a Doormat or a Dictator? with Jessica Mackey

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If you have been in business long, you might know EXACTLY what it feels like to become a Darling Doormat or a Disagreeable Dictator when it comes to your client interactions. Although you never started out intending to be either of those things, in an effort to “be nice” or get referrals, you’ve allowed clients to walk all over you and completely disregard your business rules (because you didn’t enforce them).</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Or perhaps, in an effort to</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">prevent</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">being a doormat, you have become a Disagreeable Dictator, instituting multi-page contracts and showing up with a disgruntled and distrusting energy to nice clients who just want to pay you to photograph their families. All in an effort to ensure you are NEVER taken advantage of again.  </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It should come as no surprise that neither of these options will get you to where you want to be in your portrait business, because, at the end of the day, these strategies don’t serve your clients (or you) in the best possible way.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Consider instead a third option—stepping into the role of the expert and becoming a Trusted Advisor to your clients. Your clients don’t know the photography industry like you do. They don’t know “how it works” or how YOU work.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">They just know they “need pictures.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">And the only way to succeed in creating a profitable, sustainable portrait studio is to take full responsibility for every aspect of your business and guide your clients through the process with an expert hand. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Join us for this week’s episode, where Jessica and I discuss exactly how we’ve evolved becoming Trusted Advisors to our own portrait clients. </span></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Here’s a glance at this episo