Hey, friends, welcome back to the Business Journey Podcast. I'm Rebecca, and I'm so excited to be chatting with you again today. Today's topic is one of those heart messages. It's a problem that I see amongst photographers in the photography industry that really bothers me. I want to address some of those things and just help you navigate this whole thing, because this is one of those problems that can really be detrimental to you as a photographer and causes people to just quit altogether. I don't want to see that. Today we're going to be diving into fighting comparison in the photography industry.
Before we get too far, I did want to mention, in case you missed it last week in our podcast episode, I'm actually launching a membership here in a couple of weeks. It's called Behind the Lens with Rebecca Rice. And it is going to be a low cost monthly membership where basically you get to come behind the lens with me on real family sessions. I've got behind the scenes videos. You'll get one behind the scenes video every single month seeing exactly how I shoot a session, a family session, and we're mixing it up. We have some months that will be a family session. Sometimes it's a maternity or a lifestyle newborn or smash cake, like all kinds of different things. I want you to see families with just one baby, families with five kids, all the variations and watch how I handle those sessions. You get to watch how I pose my clients in real time, why I make the shooting decisions that I do, because I do voice over and talk to you about why I position my clients here or why I'm choosing to put them under this lighting and not the other lighting. You basically just get to come along behind the scenes as if you were coming along to a shoot with me. I'm super excited for that to launch. It's going to launch April 1st. It's not an April Fool's joke. It's the real deal and there's going to be a special founding members rate. So it's going to be a low price. It's the lowest priced item I have out of all my stuff. I'm super excited for that monthly membership.
I didn't mention this last week, along with behind the scenes of a real family session every month, you're also going to get a monthly masterclass. This is me teaching or sometimes I bring in a guest educator to teach on something business specific. So for April's content, the monthly master class is a Pinterest masterclass. I'm walking you through how I have over a million monthly views on my Pinterest, how I drive traffic to my website using Pinterest, and why every photographer should be utilizing Pinterest and also like how to automate that stuff because nobody has time to just sit on Pinterest all day. That is the master class that's included in April's content. Definitely go check that out. If you're not following me on Instagram, go follow me @RebeccaRicePhotography and you'll see updates as the doors open to that membership. Also, if you're not a part of my email list and you would like to join my email list, so you get that link to join the membership, sent straight to your email on April 1st. Feel free to at me on Instagram, at Rebecca Race Photography. Send me your email and I will get you added to that list. Lots of super exciting stuff coming up in Behind the Lens with Rebecca Rice and just Rebecca Rice Photography in general. So I'm super excited to be offering this brand new product or service, I guess, to photographers to be able to serve you better. And I'm just so pumped. I know a lot of you have been asking about it when I was going to do something like that. So here it is. It's coming in just a couple of weeks on April 1st. So definitely keep your eyes out. Keep your ears open for when the doors open for that.
Now, let's dive in to this idea of fighting comparison in the photography industry. I know I have so many friends, even personally, that confide in me saying that they struggle with comparison in the industry because photography is such a visual industry, obviously, because we're taking photos of people, you know, even, you know, scrolling through Instagram, we see all of these beautiful photos.
We can see people bulking up. You know, maybe if you're a wedding photographer, you've got weddings booked up, all of twenty, twenty one and whatnot. And, you know, you can see how other people's businesses seem to be thriving. And you wonder "Why in the world am I not there? Why am I not like them? Why am I not shooting like them, looking like them?" All the things. And we can get caught in this comparison trap and it is so detrimental to our business. I feel like comparison is probably one of the number one reasons why photographers fail in their business, because they get caught in this trap of comparing themselves and comparing their journey to other peoples. So today I wanted to give just a couple of practical things that you can do to fight comparison specifically in the photography industry, that hopefully you can take these things and apply them today and protect your heart against comparison, because there's this idea or this saying that comparison kills. Comparison kills so many things. Comparison kills your joy, comparison kills your drive and your excitement. Don't let comparison win and kill those things for you. Comparison is a thief and it's trying to steal so much from you. But we have the power to remove things, adjust our mindset and just do some some very practical things to help us fight against that type of comparison.
The first thing that I want to mention when it comes to comparison is that we have to have a mindset shift. One of the things I hear so often with photographers is they talk about the saturated market that they're in. News flash, every market is saturated by photographers. They'll say "I don't know about your area, but my area is so saturated." I'll say, "hello, everybody's area is super saturated with photographers." Of course, there's plenty of room for comparison because there's tons of photographers out there and you're looking and seeing what other people are doing. So there's this mindset shift that really needs to happen really in just the whole photography industry as a whole, but specifically to comparison. That is the fact that there are way more people looking for photographers than there are photographers. When we talk about this saturated market and you see all these photographers around, you don't let that become a trap that you fall into comparing yourselves to them. Because the truth is there are way more people looking to get photos done than there are photographers to serve them. So there are plenty of clients to go around, right? Plenty of clients to go around. So you don't have to compare and wonder why so-and-so is booking so much. It's time to put your head to the ground and up your marketing game because your people are out there, OK? It's about finding them and marketing well.
Another thing that has to do with mindset and I heard this on someone's Instagram story, but I think she was quoting somebody else. They said whoever they is, they said "We aren't running a race, we aren't running a race."
I think that mindset shift as photographers is so liberating because we get so caught up comparing ourselves to all the people around us. Think if you're running a real race and I'm not a runner, I'm the kind of person that I will only run if somebody is chasing me, like try to kill me or something, I'm not a runner. Don't enjoy running, never have and never will. Oh gosh, I should never say never. You know what happens when I say never. Anyways, I think imagine yourself running a race. Of course you want to look around you to see like where you are amongst everybody and if you need to go faster. Well, for some reason, we take this idea and we put it on ourselves in our business as if we're running a race with our business. And like we have to catch up to so-and-so and we have to run faster because so-and-so is ahead of us. That's not the case. We are not running a race. We are taking a journey. We're all going at different paces. We're all going different routes. The goal isn't to win. The goal is to enjoy our journey. Whatever your journey looks like, it's not going to look like somebody else's journey. It's going to look different and that's OK, because that's how journeys are designed to be. They're designed to be different. So just keep that in mind that you're not running a race. if you need to write that on a sticky note and stick it on your computer so that you see it every single day, then do that because those reminders are what helps us get that mindset shift where it needs to be.
Another thing that I want to mention when it comes to a mindset shift is that elevating somebody else does not push you lower. And I see this in the photography industry specifically. Here's the truth. If you see a photographer, even if they're toyour direct competition in your area, if you see them just killing it, celebrate their wins, cheer them on, do whatever you need to do, because here's the deal, your heart will be healthier when you move from jealousy to celebration.
If you see somebody around you killing it, shout them out. There's somebody local to me that does an amazing job with that. Her name is Dolly DeLong, which if you're not following her on Instagram, go follow her Dolly DeLong. She is just the sweetest girl and she teaches photographers all about automations and workflows and systems. So if you need help with that, go talk to Dolly. But Dolly is in my area. I just moved to Nashville and she has been living in Nashville.
When I first moved here, I encountered a variety of different people in the photography industry. I was leaving my hometown in Texas with a handful of photographers that were my friends in the industry. We could call on each other and go hang out and just be friendly to each other. I was leaving that coming into this unknown area well before I even got here. There's a local photographer here that is a pretty big name. She straight up blocked me on social media, like just blocked me. I had never met her before. I had never asked her any questions, but she felt so threatened by the fact that I was moving to her state or her city that she felt the need to block me. So, you know, I took it as a grain of salt. It doesn't even matter. It's OK. Whatever. She apparently feels really threatened that I'm moving into her area. That's fine for me. Whereas Dolly came along and I just had such a very different experience with her. From the moment that she found out that I was moving to Nashville, she reached out to me and was so kind and so just willing to help me however she could. Once I moved here, I mean, she was constantly just cheering me on where if I posted a win to my Instagram, she would shout me out or she would hop in my DM's and just cheer me on. Now, she has every reason to go and block me like the other girl did, but she didn't. Are we direct competition? Yes, like we serve the exact same clientele but that doesn't stop us from being friendly to each other and celebrating each other's wins. You know, in fact, we actually have the exact same mini sessions on the exact same day at the exact same location. You know what? I'm OK with that, because I know that there are plenty of clients to serve and that she's going to serve her clients well and I'm going to serve my clients well. I don't feel threatened by the fact that we have the same minis and the same people that were advertising to it is what it is. I know that there are way more people that are out there that are looking to book than there are photographers offering what we're offering. So be like, Dolly. If you take anything from this podcast episode, it's to be like Dolly. Be that person that wants to celebrate people and lift them up and not see them as competition, but see them as community, because that's what I like to preach. It's all about community over competition. Whenever you embrace that community aspect, that's how you fight comparison that I don't have to sit here with Dolly and think, "Oh my gosh, why is Dolly booking this many spots? And I'm only booking this many." That's not how it works. I am in community with her and I know that I can celebrate when she books and it's okay. So it's all about the mindset shift.
Now, I don't know about you, but I've seen a lot of photography communities. Think like Facebook groups and things like that that focus solely on comparison. It is so toxic. I am a part of some Facebook groups that all they do is point out what other people are doing. I'm like, "hello, just focus on yourself. It is OK." If I said that in those groups, I would get shot down to the ground. I know that my message is that it's all about community over competition. I've seen the benefits of community over competition, so I don't worry about what other people are doing and I highly suggest you to do the same. So if you're a part of some of those like toxic communities, it may be time to see your way out. It is OK to leave that kind of community because that's not healthy to just constantly be comparing yourself to somebody else. Now, as a part of my membership that I mentioned at the beginning, the Behind the Lens, I am having a Facebook community with it. If you want to find your people, your tribe that is just so supportive and believes in community over competition, my communities are the best that there is. I will brag on them forever because they are truly amazing. You get access to my student group, whenever you join that membership on April 1st. If you're looking for that kind of community of people that are just so supportive and yes, we can provide critiques and feedback, but we do so in a way that is kind and not like degrading. If you're looking for that kind of community, that alone, I think is worth joining the membership in addition to getting all the other extra stuff as bonuses, the behind the scenes and the master classes. Shameless plug, but I love my communities.
We talked about mindset shift being a huge thing in fighting comparison. Another thing that's really practical that you can do to fight comparison is that if you find yourself in situations where comparison is too tempting, remove yourself from that. For example, I know a girl who was finding herself, as she scrolled through social media, all she was doing was comparing herself to others. Social media wasn't a way for her to connect with people anymore. It became a burden where all of a sudden she didn't feel better coming off of social media. She felt worse because she was seeing all these people with their perfectly opposed homes and they're perfectly curated grids and all things. We know that those little squares don't always show real life. In fact, most of the time they do not show real life but we can get caught up in this comparison game on social media. So if that's you, as you scroll through social media, it doesn't make you better. It makes you worse, and it just makes your heart hurt with comparison, it may be time to do something about that. So one thing that my friend did is that she decided to delete her social media apps off her phone so she didn't delete her accounts altogether. I feel like that might be a little dramatic. I know some people that have done that. You know, if that's what it takes, all power to you. Don't think you have to go into all of your accounts. All she did was deleted the apps off of her social media until she got to the place that she felt like she could handle it again. Then all you have to do is put them back on your phone and if you have to delete them again, then delete them again. Remove the apps if you have to because social media is a major part of marketing, you don't have to forego that altogether. You can use like scheduling apps or just choose to only post things from your computer. That way you don't get caught mindlessly scrolling. I don't know about you, but I do a lot less scrolling when I'm on a computer versus my phone. I think that's just habit. So if that helps you to remove those things from your phone and only deal with them on your computer, schedule your things ahead so you don't even have to be on the platforms. Maybe that's what's best for you. Another thing that you can do, if you don't want to delete your social media apps or whatever, you can just unfollow somebody. If you're following somebody that every time you look at their stuff, all you feel is jealousy and comparison, then take the liberty. Here's your permission to unfollow them. I'm not saying unfollow them because you hate them or because you're canceling them or whatever. It's not about that, but if that's what it takes for your heart to be healthy, then it's OK to unfollow somebody. That doesn't mean that you have to follow them forever. Maybe you give yourself a season of rest where you're not seeing their stuff. There may be settings where you can hide them instead of and follow them. Look for that. I'm pretty sure you can do it on Facebook. I don't know if you can do that on Instagram, but it's worth looking into because if you can hide that stuff or unfollow them for a season and then allow your heart to heal, allow that mindset to shift to where it needs to be, then you can take the steps to follow them again or, you know, show their posts on your feet again. That's worth your heart being healthy, if that's what it takes. Your heart will thank you.
I hope this helps giving just a couple of really practical things that you can do to fight comparison. I know that comparison is hard and it's ugly and it's just it's everywhere. If I can do anything to help you fight comparison or if you just need to vent or you have questions, my DMS are always open on my Instagram @RebeccaRicePhotography. I would love to chat with you. If that means having just a real raw conversation about your struggles with comparison, that's fine. I am all about that because I'm here to walk with you and do this thing with you. However I can help, however I can serve you if you just need a listening ear. I am here for that. I hope these things were helpful and that you'll be able to use something and apply something to your business and just your lifestyle immediately because it's worth it. Like I said of beginning your heart will thank you.
That's all we got today. Short and sweet episode, but I feel like that was pretty packed. If you have any questions, let me know. I'd love to help. And don't forget about the Behind the Lens with Rebecca Rice monthly membership launching on April 1st. Keep a look out for that. It is the lowest priced item in my shop. I'm telling you it is going to be a steal of a deal. If you're a founding member, you get a special rate. Hope you have an awesome week and we will see you back next week. Bye!
Episode Transcript
