Lesson Info
9. Great Plans Still Fail
Summary (Generated from Transcript)
The topic of this lesson is the importance of strategy and planning in starting a photography business, even though great plans often fail. The instructor shares personal examples of failed business ventures and emphasizes that failures can lead to growth and success in the long run.
Q&A:
Why do we need a strategy and a plan?
We need a strategy and a plan because even great plans can fail, and having a plan helps guide our actions and decisions.
What are some examples of the instructor's failed businesses?
Some examples of the instructor's failed businesses include Jivejive, Meebi tag, Indieworks Corps, Echozen, Frooshie, and Undfind.
What happened to the web startup that the instructor quit Ernst and Young for?
The web startup had funding close to a million dollars, but it got pulled right when the recession started, leaving the team with no funding and a failed business.
What is the instructor's perspective on failures?
The instructor sees failures as opportunities for growth and learning. Each failure leads to the next thing being done better.
How many of the instructor's businesses have failed or exited?
23 out of 25 of the instructor's businesses have either failed or exited.
How often does the instructor start a new project?
On average, the instructor starts a new project every other year.
Is it okay to put a pause on a project and focus on something else?
Yes, it is okay to start something and put a pause on it if you're not ready yet or need to focus on something else.
Lessons
Class Introduction
13:12 2Common Myths & Unknown Truths
11:42 3The Road Ahead
13:03 4Find Your Passion
06:06 5The Lin & Jirsa Journey
13:54 6Part-time, Full-time, Employed, Partners?
03:51 7Stop Wasting Time & Money
06:07 8Your 12 Week Roadmap
04:33Great Plans Still Fail
06:01 10Strategy Vs. Planning
04:16 11Mind Mapping
07:25 12Select a Focus
14:16 13Competitor Research
09:34 14S.W.O.T. Analysis
13:54 15Strategy & Long Term Goals
03:50 16Values, Vision & Mission
27:49 17Effectively Managing Your Time
15:05 18Artistic Development
07:30 19Create Your Plan
13:12 20What's Your Product
10:51 21Luxury vs Consumer Products & Experiences
11:44 22Quick Break for Econ 101
16:31 23Your Target Market & Brand Message
21:25 24What's in a Name
09:20 25Your Client 'Why'
05:43 26Crafting the Why Experience
24:17 27Document the Client Experience
08:29 28Business Administration Basics
27:03 29Book Keeping Management
06:51 30Create the Logo & Branding
07:04 31Portfolio Design
15:11 32Design Your Services & Packages
18:51 33Pricing Fears & Myths
08:46 34Three Pricing Methods
25:39 35Package Pricing Psychology & Design
06:15 36Psychology of Numbers
07:29 37Pricing Q&A
23:51 38Grass Roots Marketing
09:36 39The Empty Party
07:03 40Friends & Family Test Shoots
16:28 41Join Groups
04:32 42Second Shooting Etiquette
07:44 43The Listing & Classified Hustle
14:10 44Make Instagram Simple
13:55 45Your Automated Pinterest Plan
08:01 46Facebook Because You Must
07:37 47Giveaway & Styled Shoots
12:17 48Content Marketing & SEO
08:12 49The Monster: SEO
07:26 50Selecting Your Keywords
05:45 51Testing Your Keywords
07:53 52Grouping Main & Niche Goals
12:39 53Your Content Road Map
11:47 54Content Marketing Q&A
10:45 55Inspiration to Keep Working
07:45 56How to Craft Your Content
15:03 57Internal Linking Basics
05:30 58Back Link Building Basics
04:55 59Link Value Factos
14:38 60Measuring Link Value
04:24 61Link Building Strategy & Plan
06:10 62Link Building Plan: Vendors & Guest Writing
06:45 63Link Building Plan: Features, Directories, Comments
03:11 64Link Building: Shortcuts & One Simple Tool
14:44 65What is Sales? Show Me!
12:58 66Your First Massive Failure
05:17 67The Sales Process
07:31 68Your Second Massive Failure
05:23 69Understand Buyer Psychology
10:00 70Step 0: Building Rapport & Trust
15:14 71Step 1: Identify Need or Want
15:39 72Cognitive Dissonance
12:01 73Steps 2 & 3: Value Proposition & The Solution
14:21 74Step 4 : Close, Make the Ask
04:32 75Step 5: Follow Up & Resolve Concerns
06:13 76Family Photography Hot Seat
12:06 77Business Example Hot Seat
15:52 78Boudoir Photography Hot Seat
16:09 79The Best Sales Person
07:45 80Your Mindset, Vibrations & Frequency
06:56 81Always Positive, Always Affirming
11:55 82The Second Money & Dual Process
07:39 83Chumming the Price Waters
03:57 84Creating Want or Scarcity
09:54 85Timeless Advice on Being Likable
11:53 86Selling Over The Phone
10:59 87Forbidden Words in Sales
11:40Lesson Info
Great Plans Still Fail
Great let's get started with strategy and planning. Now we are in this section of our roadmap before we can actually know what to do, what competitiveness and analyze. All that stuff we needed to find our focus, and I wanna talk about that for just a little bit. So why do we need a strategy and a plan? Because great plans, they still fail, constantly. And I've by the way selected images that kind of correspond to the topic that we're learning. This is a family shoot and maternity session where well like every single one of them your plan fails, and the kids go off playing with their little toys and doing their thing. But there's kind of a beauty in these imperfect moments, right? There's a beauty in the fact that great plans still fail as well because it leads you somewhere, and each of those failures take you somewhere. Don't feel like that's a bad thing. I'm gonna show you. Jivejive, this was actually what we quit Ernst and Young for. This was a web startup that we had funding for, c...
lose to a million dollars, and it got pulled right when the recession started. So we quit Ernst and Young, three weeks later we had our team ready and in place, funding was gone, investors said they didn't wanna do it any more, and we were just left kind of holding our website in our hands, and like what do we do now? Okay, and the recession was starting if you guys remember that time. So that failed. Haha we have more. Meebi tag, Indieworks Corps, Echozen, there's a lot of comedy in this, Frooshi, Undfind, so we ended up, you know you own like some of these registered names. So IW actually became our parent holding company for all of our... Cause we had it already, it was a failed business, we had all the legal work done. Same thing with Undfined. We started as a creative studio for web design, and then when that... We were like we're not gonna do that anymore. Then we're like let's make bags for photography. So that became Undfined. So like all these things just... We reused the names. It's fine. Meebi tag was actually a great idea. This was a way to actually tag products within YouTube videos when YouTube was just coming up. Another idea that was on the verge of funding that we lost. These are all failures. Frooshie was probably my favorite failure because it tasted the best. It was really good. So we invented Frooshie. I kid you not nobody else had this. This was back in college. This was like our very first startup. We got $100,000 from the city. We developed Frooshie. I was in charge of all the beautiful design assets you see and the logos and that kind of stuff, and eventually the company tanked. They hired the wrong person to manage it, and it went down. But again one of my startups that failed, and Frooshie was really delicious. Have you guys ever fruit sushi? It sounds terrible, but it's really good. We had this problem in every market. (audience laughing) Fruit sushi sounds terrible, but it's really good. It was. It was like this coconut milk rice and you roll fruits inside of it and it had like a sugary strawberry drizzle on it. It was really delicious. There was no seaweed or fish involved, which was problematic because it was fruit sushi and people expected that. Who'd a thunk? You know? We had taste test ratings that put it up there with ice cream. Just saying. That's a big deal. Undfined, this was our... We had photography bags we made for quite a while. It was actually a profitable venture. We still cut it, because it just wasn't comparable to all of our other stuff. My point is if you look on our server this is underscore zero zero killed projects. Boom, these are all the things that we have started and at one point either failed or stopped. The best of all of them was our boy band. (speaker laughing) I kid you not. (audience laughing) You think it's funny, we actually had a contract in Taiwan as a boy band. The only problem was when we got the deal, we got a record deal, when we got the deal it was expense only for the first year, and this is Eric, Eric was graduating from dental school, we're all CPAs, and we're like I think we're about 10 years past this boy band startup phase. Maybe we should move on. But I love this picture because I'm like the only brown man in a sea of Chinese, Asian, Taiwanese boys. These are all brothers, and I'm like in the background. like hiding with my hat, don't look at me. We knew our market. Our market was Taiwan. That's what we're aiming for. We got it, but we eventually left it. Our music is still online, hint hint, just in case anybody... (audience laughing) Our track record. Would you bet on these odds? 23 of 25 of our businesses we've either failed or exited. I'm hoping that helps to relieve you a little bit, because that everyone of those failures led to us doing the next thing better. So it's gonna be this process that you're gonna through. Two of the 25 were successful. Well successful enough that we kept. That's Lin and Jirsa and that's SLR Lounge. On average, we currently start a new project every other year. So that's kind of like our pace of starting things, and now it's Line and Roots. And it's okay to start something and put a pause on it. Say I'm going to start this, you know what I'm not quit ready yet, and let's go back and focus on this thing and put a pause on it. That's totally fine too. If the majority of great plans fail though, are you willing to have no plan, because every one of the things that you just saw had full business plans. Meebi tag had a 20 page write-up documenting out the exact plan of what it was, how much funding we needed, who were gonna be the developers, everything. Every one of those had plans.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Armstrong Su
This class and materials are to the point and eye-opening on the business side of photography. Pye Jirsa is an amazing and fun teacher as well! Most photographers need more business classes offered to bring us who love to create art back to reality for a more successful business that makes a living on it's own. This course will definately get you started in the right direction and so cheap too! Great investment! armstrong outdoor tv case outdoortvcase Pye Jirsa is one of the best instructors that I have the pleasure to learn from. He and his team have given me so much more than they'll ever realize. Knowledge, wisdom, training, friendship, mentoring, inspiration, joy... I cannot thank Pye enough for changing my life for the better. I owe them more than they'll ever realize. Thank you, Pye Jirsa!!!
Angela Sanchez
This class has been an eye opener for me; a point of change in my vision as photographer. Pye is and AMAZING, INSPIRING, GENEROUS instructor, with an, authentic desire to help people and to share with them the best of his knowledge. I will not have enough words to say thanks to Pye Jirsa, as a teacher and as a human being, and thanks to Creative Live who allows us to benefit from the experience of such a knowledgeable, educated, well-versed photographer and instructor. 1000% recommended!
Yenith LianTy
Been following this guy forever. Pye Jirsa may be well known in the wedding & portrait photography world and if there is something that this guy knows it is how to create a business, a sustainable one. The workbook he provided is comprehensive, and I honestly wish I had this when I first started out as a photographer! I love that he talks about his failures, keeping it real and honest for anyone starting out. He is definitely one of the best instructors around, super humble, down to earth and with a sense of humor to boot. The course is worth it! THE WORKBOOK is AMAZING! SUPER DETAILED!