Sign of a Failing Business: The Cheerleaders Take a Seat
You silenced the longtime hype crowd. It's time to close your shop.
I’m sitting here sick with a promise to power-write this in 20 minutes, without much editing. It’s a lesson that I needed to learn again, and I imagine you may benefit from it also.
I spoke with my friend yesterday (giving her a fake name). Sheri is an older lady who had much success in her business. She had a once-successful catering business in a luxury market of Orange County. And now as the economy slides, age walks into the room, and just a change in the market - she’s feeling the pressure to close down her business.
It breaks my heart while at the same time, makes me a little happy for the sole reason that she gets to live again. She isn’t working 7 days a week, and she gets to enjoy life in her 60’s.
Sheri has more life in her, more energy, and more to conquer - yet she could not pivot. She won’t pivot if I can say it more honestly.
Yesterday after a 90 minute phone call, I gave up trying to cheer her on. I will always be there but I gave up on screaming her name, hyping her up, giving her ideas, and encouraging her to go after her dreams. I gave up on teaching her how to use Ai, post in Instagram, etc…
I have a list in front of me, I had 4 solutions for her to immediately make money using her skills/gear. They were all shut down before I could finish the sentence. I tried and tried, but she focused more on how terrible everything is.
Once you tell me over and over that you won’t do this, you won’t do that, this idea won’t work, that idea won’t work, cut me off mid-sentence to revert the conversation back to a pity-story, and just turn away from every solution… I too, give up.
At the risk of making it look like this is about me, I am going to say that I felt a profound sadness last night and this morning. It was the end of my friendship in the former stage and now I am embracing the new era. It’s an era of uncertainty for her.
The old era being, motivational and cheering on, helping and guiding. The new era being, acceptance. You think you have no other option? OK. You think you’re too old to learn this or that? OK. You think the world sucks and everything is against you? OK.
I can’t want success for you, more than you want success for you.
Fork After Fork, and Then More Forks
The many forks in road eventually bring you to the tip of the final branch. It sounds dire and I don’t mean it that way but the decision you made at 22 will affect your life at 62. The willingness to pivot and accept something new at 34 will prep you better for 64. My friend barely shifted because of the fear of change. She avoided change and blamed it all on the economy, the internet, the next generation, etc..
If there’s one thing I realized over the past 15 years of knowing her, she won’t accept change. If you won’t shift and reinvent, you are picking the road of doom.
She’d rather spend 90% of her energy tank complaining vs. 40% of the same energy making a small pivot. I always noticed this and always pointed it out, but she cut me off mid-sentence and she told me another story that got her pity, attention, and took away energy from finding a solution.
It took me 5 years to get her on Instagram. One day I decided to create an account for her and she eventually took it over. She had every reason under the sun to avoid social media and when she finally took the reins of the account - she booked many clients, shows, Farmer’s markets and met people. But she was afraid of change and what should have taken a weekend, took nearly 5 years.
I started telling her “if you do this now, you can do that much easier later on!” and she gave me 14 reasons why she can’t, and how awful the world is. For every solution, she found a problem. The decisions she made upon each fork-in-the-road brought us here.
Did I Offer to Help Her?
I happily offered multiple photoshoots for free, lessons on social media, told her about social media for several years, hired her, called to check in on her (and her husband), listened, gave pricing tips, marketing advice, etc… 95% of it, wasn’t heard because she wanted to speak more than listen.
Hear people. They have experience to help you. I’m sad as I write this, because I think of everything that could have been. That should have been. Now she’s facing bankruptcy, selling all of her kitchen materials and giving up her industrial food kitchen. It’s heartbreaking!
A life of stubbornness brought us here. She works hard. She’s honest and an incredible human but she ran away from change. She couldn’t pivot and found all the reasons to avoid doing it.
Dear Artists: Pivot. Reinvent. Re-Calibrate.
Everything is a variable. Everything moves, changes, and nothing is true. Everything you know is a lie. Here’s what I mean: It’s only true if it never changes.
Life moves and you must move with it. You don’t want to make content for your business? I don’t either. You just draw your boundaries on what you are willing to accept and what you won’t accept. You won’t be seeing me doing a TikTok dance but you’ll see me on TikTok, showing up in a way that works for me. You won’t hear me complaining how social media is ruining photography. Instead you’ll see me involved in social media to save photography, to help others, and be an active participant.
The beginning of my career started with Madonna. One her nicknames is “the mother of re-invention” and I’ve always admired that. If that woman was a body of water, she’d be a roaring river that sometimes becomes a deep slow moving body of water, then a rocky and splashy river moving at top speed. Sometimes she’ll dump into a lake or into the ocean ,but she’s never the same and she changes based on the landscape. She is not a pond where the water sits stagnant. Change is good and change is inevitable. Embrace it.
Be the river my friends, allow yourself to mold to whatever landscape comes your way because great adventures await.
My Advice for Photographers/Videographers
You can listen to this section because my fever is coming back and I want to lay down. So I’ll speak into the microphone to get this out.
You Paint the Picture, We Believe You
I can guarantee some of you may say it’s not good to give up on your friends. You are correct but everything has to have an expiration date. Everything comes to an end, because none of this is real and we’re always evolving. After at least a decade of service, I’m retiring from the hype-squad.
If you tell me, it’s over. I’ll believe you.
If you tell me there are zero solutions, I have to believe you.
If you tell me that life is stacked against you and you shut down every solution I bring up - I need to believe you.
Be careful what picture you paint or what words you write.
We have no choice but to believe you.
Take your bow. This show is over. I will support you always, but I am frustrated that your stubbornness brought you here.