Running a small business is no easy task. It's messy and thrilling and terrifying all at the same time. But no matter what, it's definitely a journey worth taking. As a mom of two littles, I know the daily struggles, and I'm here to walk this journey with you. If you're ready to feel empowered, encouraged and on fire for the things you truly love, and you're in the right place. I'm Rebecca Rice, a pizza loving hot chocolate drinking family photographer and educator. And this is the business Journey podcast.
Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of the business Journey podcast.
I'm your host, Rebecca rice. And today we're talking about a really interesting topic. It's one of those heart topics that I've been wanting to talk about for a while. And finally, we have a space on the calendar to be able to talk about it. And so we're going to be jumping into talking about pleasing people versus serving people what the difference is, and just how to respond to that in our lives, it's going to be a good one. Before we get too far, I wanted to let you know about a resource that I have available for you. If you are here and you're wanting to learn more about the world of mini sessions, you're in the right place. So my students call me the queen of minis, we are like in the thick of mini session season right now. So if you're wanting to uplevel, your mini sessions game, then we have a resource just for you. And it's completely free. It is a blueprint to help you make your first $3,000 on a single set of minis. And when I say a set of minis, I mean like a two to three hour time block of mini sessions on one date. So if you either have never done mini sessions before, or maybe you have, but you've never made more than $3,000 on a single set of minis, then this blueprint is for you. So you can grab it today, it's completely free, you can grab it at Rebecca rice photo.com/ 3k Dash minis, so be sure to take advantage of that resource, I know it's going to be helpful for you. It's just a step by step blueprint, a guide to how to run mini sessions in a way that makes them profitable, efficient, all the things. So I know it's gonna be helpful for you go ahead and grab that. Now, let's jump into today's topic. So the idea of talking about this, you know, pleasing people versus serving people really came from a Facebook post that my Realtors also my friends had had posted. And it was this idea that, you know, he was having this conversation with a mentor. And they asked how his business was going. He said, It's going great. I've got some really happy clients, I'm glad to be able to please them. And then he said, Wait, sorry,
I'm glad to be able to serve them. But even just saying the words, I'm glad I was able to please them really spoke to the root of I think a problem a lot of photographers have really business owners in general. But I wanted to kind of bring this topic into our world of, you know, family photography, I want to pose a question to you. What is your job, as a photographer? Is your job to make clients happy? I feel like most of us start out thinking this way that our job is to make happy clients, right? Our job is to make families happy with the photos that we provide them. And I feel like this mindset really has to shift. Because here's the deal. Our job isn't to please our clients at the root of it. Our job is to serve them well. Because here's the truth, pleasing people is deceptive. It can feel good in the moment. But what happens when the praise and the raving reviews stop, right? We are left drained. We've worked so hard for all that praise. And then it's gone. You know, we get that dopamine hit in the moment when people are raving about us and our work and things like that. But then it's gone that dopamine hit does not last long. And just the whole idea of pleasing people. It's draining at the end of the day. And so when pleasing people is the goal. We then become enslaved to people's opinions of us, because we want that dopamine hit. We're working even harder to get those, you know, great opinions from people. And it's exhausting. We become enslaved to those opinions. And so then we care what people think. And you know, you may say, Well, just don't care what people think you shouldn't care what people think. Honestly, that's wrong. You should care what people think. But that's just called integrity right? For me. I Hear what people think about my business? Because, you know, I want people to think highly of me not because of the way I'm able to please them or offer them in exchange for this high opinion of me. No, no, I want people to think highly of me because of the character that I've built within myself. But I understand that what they think of me doesn't determine who I am. So because I have integrity, there's a certain level of my heart that cares what people think. But it's because I want them to value the character that I've worked hard on, see, I can have integrity in the way that I run my business, and somebody can still be mad about something, you're good integrity doesn't equal good opinions. Because that's just the reality of owning a business is somebody is always going to be upset at some point, right, you're gonna make people upset, whether your integrity is great or not. And so my level of integrity that I like to keep within my business, that's for me, knowing that I have built this character as a foundation, that, you know, my business has certain morals that we go by, and ethics, and, you know, it is what it is. But when it comes down to pleasing people, that's not my goal. See, when we switch to a mindset of serving people, instead of pleasing people, we learn that serving brings freedom, that we're not in bondage to this idea that, you know, we're stuck with people's opinions of us, if my goal is just to serve people that serving brings this freedom, that by serving well, it won't matter what people think of me, because I know that I did my part to serve them well, serving means just to do something for somebody else. And so when we do our best to help our clients, most of the time, they will be pleased. But praise isn't what drives us,
it's knowing that we helped them. So really, the mindset shift is a motivation shift, what you're doing is motivated by just getting, you know, the recognition and the praise from people, it's gonna run out, because that's what happens. But if your motivation is then switched to your whole goal is to just help people, then you can serve well. And there's always people to help, right? There's always ways that you can serve your clients or families. And so it just lasts us a whole lot longer. And so even if a client doesn't give us praise, you know, how many clients do you have that you know that they love the experience with you. But then when you deliver the gallery, all you get is like sayings. And they don't leave a review. They don't give send you a text with exclamation points like nothing, there's no gushing. And I know that that can be like soul crushing when it's like, I just spent so much time working on this gallery. And all I got was a thanks, like with a period at the end. And so when that happens, if my motivation is I just want to serve them well, and I'm not in it for the praise, then I can step away knowing I served that client, well, even if she didn't express it the way that you know, my heart would have hoped for her to express it. I still know that I served them well. And that fuels me knowing that I did good. And so your job as a photographer, you know, the question I posed the beginning, is it to please people? No, your job is to serve people, not for the recognition, but to make the lives of the families that you serve a little better. And that should be enough. That's why you'll never catch me saying that I sell to clients. My goal isn't to sell to them. I'm not trying to book them. My goal is to serve clients. And so the words that you say matter if this is a mindset that you're wanting to, like, grow within yourself, try switching up your words and saying serve like instead of I'd love to work with you. Whenever you're talking with clients say I'd love to serve you, if families reached out to me or to my associate team, we never use the word work with you. I'd love to work with you. Any communication we have, whether it's on social media, or our blog, or an email or whatever, we're always talking about serving people, because we want to set that expectation up front with our clients that we don't just want to work with them. We want to serve them. And we have this heart of humility, this heart of a servant to say how can I make your life a little bit better? And so for us, we believe that we can serve people through our photography. Absolutely. That's not just working with them. And it's not just a transaction of them giving us money in exchange for photos, although that's what it is. For us. It goes a lot deeper that we're able to serve their families and give them memories that we were able to capture for them to treasure forever. It goes beyond the transaction. There's so much more to that. And so I've talked about how this business is like a ministry to me that my photography business if you know a little bit about my history, I was a youth pastor. I worked in a church full time for nine years before I went full time in my photography and the only reason I went full time in my photography was because we moved and we I moved away from my church, we moved out of state. And that was unexpected for us. But it was what the Lord had for us. And so for me, this business is a ministry and I get to pour into the lives of the families that we serve. So it goes so much more than just that transaction, because I want to speak to their hearts, right, I want to shine the love of Jesus to every client that I serve. Even if I never say Jesus loves you, or whatever to their face, they can see through my actions, because our business again walks with integrity, they can see just the way that I speak to them, and the way that I conduct myself around them, they can see Jesus shining, whether they know that's what it is or not, they can see it, there's something different. And so because this is my ministry, I want to serve, that's my heart. And so I encourage you to like, really dig deep and ask yourself, like, What is your motivation? In your business? Are you wanting to just work with clients? Or are you wanting to serve them? Are you motivated only by the praise that you receive? Or is there a deeper motivation, and if there's not a deeper motivation, and you want that, start now to work on cultivating that within yourself, because it can absolutely happen. And I believe that our clients will be happier when they're served well, instead of just, you know, worked with well, when our motivation is to just help them any way that we can. My team is always working on elevating our client experience. And part of that is because we want to serve people better every single year. And so however, we can do that, we're striving to do that. Now, this doesn't mean that we have to, you know, lower our prices, or give away our stuff like,
that's not, this isn't a charity, it's a for profit business. But you can still serve people well, even while making a profit. Because my goal is to make money off of this business, my photography, business, you know, my associate team, all of that, that goes to, you know, feeding my family. This is our sole income mine and my husband's, it's the income of the girls that are on my team full time in part time, making a profit matters, not just for my family, but for their families, too. And so we're in this to make a profit, but we still want to serve well. So the two can go hand in hand, they don't have to be independent of each other, you can either be profitable, or be able to serve people well and make this your ministry, like you can do both well, and so I don't know who needs to hear that today. But you can do both of those. And you can do them well, you can serve people well. And, you know, honor God with your business, if that's your goal, or, you know, just show people love. But while still making a profit, it absolutely can be done the to go hand in hand. So again, this is one of those like more heart topics, not as practical as most of my other podcast episodes, if you're looking for practical, we've got tons go take a look. But I just really wanted to get to the heart of the matter today, because I just feel so strongly that if our industry would focus more on serving rather than pleasing people, that photographers would get burnt out less, a whole lot less clients would be served better. And just the industry as a whole would be elevated. And so take this as you will. I hope that you know this spoke to your heart on some level. If you want to chat about this more, like reach out to me my DMs I'd love to have a conversation. You can find me at Rebecca rice photography. I do have a team but they're not in my DMs. So people wonder like, Am I really talking to you, Rebecca? Yes, it's really me responding to the DMS I do get a lot. So if like it takes me a little bit to respond, give me Be patient with me. But I love having those conversations. And so you know, if you want to chat more about this idea of pleasing people versus serving people or just anything about your business, like feel free to reach out I would love to serve you. However I can. Because that extends to my students do that you guys, I want to serve you guys well, also. So that's what I got for you guys today. Don't forget to grab that blueprint that I mentioned at the beginning it was Rebecca rice co.com/ 3k Dash minis. We have it linked to the shownotes for you but grab that if you want to uplevel your mini sessions. And we'll be back next week with another awesome practical topic. So with that, we'll close out and hope you guys have an awesome week. We'll see you next week. Bye
