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Student Prosperity Plan Hotseat

Lesson 8 from: Sparking Business Growth

Mike Michalowicz

Student Prosperity Plan Hotseat

Lesson 8 from: Sparking Business Growth

Mike Michalowicz

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Lesson Info

8. Student Prosperity Plan Hotseat

Next Lesson: The Sweet Spot

Lesson Info

Student Prosperity Plan Hotseat

so June. Can you refresh everyone's memory real quickly as to what your business is? Kind of rocking high. I run a small photographer business out of Sacramento. We focus on Portrait's and weddings, Portrait's and weddings. Great. Okay, So as I was talking about purpose and mission, do you have? Have you thought about your purpose in the past and what is behind your love of photography? Yeah, I think it's anything. It's too full and that is that. Okay, there's, I think it's a We want to create great artwork for clients homes like images that they can put up on big canvases and albums that they can really cherish for a lifetime. We're really looking to do heirloom pieces, but then it's also creating memories. We want our couples after they leave an engagement session of it that was so much fun or leave their wedding day. Oh my God, I had so much fun taking my pictures or families. They walk away, going attendance that didn't suck. That wasn't horrible. Eat it. And having those memories ...

from those photo sessions, I think, is really, really important. So you love creating fun memories for people, memories, artwork I think Natalie's artwork, which really creates beauty in people's lives lasting beauty that resonate with yeah, that. Okay, so you have the seed of your purpose. So what you would do that is translate that into your company's mission. Okay, So for example, you could say our mission is to bring lasting beauty and memories into the lives of couples and families through photography. Something along that How does that sound? T. O Okay, so and you want to make sure. So I came up with that. I helped you come up, but would you really want it? Do is said yourself, Does that feel good to me in here? And if it resonates with you, if it really feels exciting to, then that's your mission. And that's a mission that you come back to when you're making decisions about your company. Will does this fit with my company mission? It was a company, but you wanted to be brought enough that you're not. You know, restricting yourself to our mission is to take pictures of bribing rooms on Wednesdays and Fridays. You know, that's too narrow, But what we just came up with is a great motivating mission. when I left that because of work comes in. It doesn't fall within that mission way. No way. Music to our ears. Yes, yes, absolutely. So my company's destiny. Can you tell us what your ultimate vision is for your my ultimate vision would be for us. Teoh. We currently live in Sacramento, but my husband and I were born and raised in a little town called at Murphys, Calif. Harris County. And it's our where heart and soul is that. And my I would love for us to own a home there and and run our business from that little town. Have our daughter grew up. We grew up in a photograph, weddings in front of Barnes and Rustic and in Meadows. And my God parents got married in calories. Victory State Park. And that's my destiny is to do weddings there where we grew up, and I can see how much that isn't it. Oh, my gosh, like that is a beautiful, beautiful vision. And one, if you if you sit down and write that out and you read that to yourself every morning, that's going to keep you going through the through the tough spots because our vision is really, you know, it ties into our Why Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? Because if you don't know why you're doing something, why are you doing it? Yeah, and it's very hard to stay motivated. I think it's so easy. And we run these. This is like the time we get hotness. Mnuchin, we forget there's a purpose for why we're doing it. Yes, absolutely. We get lost in that day to day, you know, craziness. Oh, I have to do this for this client. And I have a deadline for this, and we do forget to stop. And that's the beautiful thing about the prosperity plan. Because if you tell yourself I'm going to revisit this plan quarterly, for example, You you don't ever forget for too long you started our company for the sole purpose of doing something together. Teoh. All of us watching our daughter grow up. And we've gone so far off course from that. And I love that we have to get it down on paper. And I want a plaster in her living room wall. Definitely it It's like a vision board. I don't know if you all know what a vision board is. You hang it where you can see it every day. My entrepreneurs get stuck in being pushed forward by fear. But we're whipping ourselves, like living on horses, keep running, keep running and takes us off course. But what you're demonstrating here, it's a magnet. It starts pulling. And I could see in your energy, June, just when you start talking, I could you started ringing, pulled forward by its It's a relentless force when we know why we're here, Why we're doing this, that it just keeps us moving forward. And even I think in the darkest days of business, we're all gonna have it. When you know why you're here doing this, it pulls you through it. It does. And another comment. Because your partners with your husband, I will say this is a fabulous exercise to get together to get you on the same page. You know, we've gone through this process and it really does help to clarify and where you're headed. Yeah, so So now your company's area of innovation, we've honestly, I think, been competing on price on that has been my own fear. And I've been selling off of our own pocketbook, which I know is a huge mistake. It needs to be off quality and fresh quality would be capturing people's essence and who they really are and then shooting it creatively were really known as the creative photographers and seeing things differently and moving away from Price. And I have to break away from my fear and start charging for what are to quality is. And I love that Yes, yes, because you don't want to be that commodity where people are saying I'm looking for the least expensive photographer. Those people who are just shopping for photographers on price are not your ideal clients. We want the ones that that want our artwork who want those creative, beautiful images exactly. And those people are willing to pay for that. If that's what if their gut in their heart is saying, Oh, my gosh, look at this beautiful work. I have to have this. They're gonna pay. They're going to pay that were not working as mentioned were exactly exactly great. So quality and what you want to do is continue to develop that. How can we find Mawr ways to be more artistic and out and be more creative so that we don't look like the standard portrait's that everybody gets on their wedding day. Okay, So powerful home. I promise she was not a plant. So how about your immutable laws? Do any come up for you, like right away that that are really important to you. I love when we jive with the clients that makes and you know, when you click with the client and I think that something in that I don't know what the law would be. I don't know. Maybe it's about something about connection, something about connecting. We have this weird tendency becoming really good friends with most of our clients, really good friends. And so there has to be, at least in my anywhere that connection happens and going to our first meeting with a client. I need to make sure that we feel that bond that I can, because if I'm gonna provide those memories for them, I need to build a click with them. And I think that's so important. I love that. I mean, I think that also makes you stand out like how how great would it be if everybody could say my photographer is not just some professional that I barely know, but she's my friend and she knows me really well. And she's going to get those shots that she knows that I'm going toe want because she knows me, you know? So that's something else that goes into your artistic quality. The reason why we can do these beautiful, different artistic shots that you're going to love is because we become your friends, you know? Perfect. There we go. Yeah. Thank you, Mike. He's the expert. Excellent. Um, anything else that jumps into your mind with that one I wanted immutable law. This is if it takes away from our family than it's not, it's not worth it, right? Everything so kind of family first, Yes, family first. And maybe that's part of your why you know that in that part of my wife is part of your why, So that's great. So when you're thinking about making decisions, when you're thinking about who you're dealing with, it went, and if you bring in employees, you want them to share these immutable laws. And I will tell you one of our clients has an immutable law. Same immutable law family first, and this goes for how she deals with her employees all day long. And when you talk to them, this is a really great place to work. People love working there, and a lot of that is because they say if we have a problem at home or we have a crises, we never get penalized for this. The company always understands they support us. We know that they understand that family comes first, and that's why we love working here. And I'll tell you something. This is the most amazing team of of employees I've ever seen in terms off wanting to fulfill the company's mission because they all share that immutable law that's so important to me. And then my company's community is, Who do you serve? Who's your? I think you've already kind of said it. It's what you people who are getting married family families who are who are looking for something artistic and different that they are going to want to want to display in their home. That's also going to trigger memory. So right, so we just wrote your prosperity, so thank you so much, you can go back out of the hot seat. Now, you know when June start talking about quality on heirlooms? I'm like, Oh, my God. Why can't wait to start talking about authentic marking, which we'll talk about later today? There's so many ways to differentiate that she'll be like no other photographer on this planet because she can exploit it. And the fact she loves rural areas spoke to me. But what? We can exploit that too. So I just love that you went through this and that you picked it up so quickly. I think everything is going to share that. This is this becomes a living document. Something we read every day. So much for me. And I don to every night when I go to bed, I'm going through my prosperity plan. I actually have it memorized because condensed in short, but I can see this. And just one final thing I want to share life mission becomes this magnet pulling, afford. Uh, I'm sorry. Life mission becomes this energy. Like I saw it on you the second you felt destiny is the magnet. This is where your intended to go. So now you know where to go. Air of innovations, How you differentiate yourself from everybody else. This is your uniqueness company. Immutable laws thes air the rules you're gonna play by as the ultimate filter. This isn't just clients that you're not going to do business with and the ones you are. But the employees, employees that get your immutable laws are going to rock stars. The ones that don't are the rock stars, but not here somewhere else. When you design your website, you know the rules you gotta abide by now and in your community it becomes apparent. And when you understand this and Don has got our company so far for it, we can go into a room with 100 people sitting there and she can say that's the person because she knows the demographic, the psychographic, the way the person looks. She understands the perfect client so well. And I think you're almost there in one little section. So I'm just fired up microphone falling, E tissues, my pockets. You're awesome. Everybody's really fired up. We've got great comments coming in from the Internet. I think it was really excited by this show. We're actually going to take a 45 minute break. Now we're gonna grab some lunch in San Francisco. But Michael Donna, what are we gonna be talking about when we come back? Were hit in the sweet spot in the sweet spot. This is somebody talked about right in the beginning, off finding those elements. What makes unique? Who are the people that want it? And how do you start system izing it? That's exceed two colossal success. That's what we're in tackled next. We're excited to fight it. And looking forward to that, we've got some great comments coming for you to this one directly for Donna. This is from Fraser says Amen. Sister saying, OMG, this dude is awesome. So I guess that was for you on gender photography, Mike. Enjoying your content? Happy birthday. It's my birthday to my name is Michael. Finally is one more coming? Carla J say, Mike, honesty is what makes creative life great.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Client Assessment Chart.pdf
Mike Michalowicz Presentation Slides.pdf
Mike Michalowicz WSJ Articles .pdf
Process Flow.pdf
Survival Trap.pdf
Sweet Spot.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

Jason Spencer
 

I was a part of the live audience, so I had a little extra business growth behind the scenes. If you ever have a chance to attend a live broadcast, I highly encourage it. This program follows the concepts of Mike's book "The Pumpkin Plan" very closely, but it's the expanded elements that make it worth every penny. I pulled quite a few business ideas and nuggets that I still use nearly a year later. Even owning the course, I took over 17 pages of detailed notes. Gaining a solid understanding of Immutable Laws, Pruning, UPOD, and so much more helps you from day one. But it's much more than that, because you can create a system that allows you to almost grow on auto-pilot and build profit along the way (the Profit First segment was one of my favorites because I'd already been doing some of it). It you own a business, you can't go wrong with this course in your arsenal of tips and tools.

a Creativelive Student
 

Great course, learned a tons. Thanks a lot Mike & Donna. Got some great insights for my business and will implement them right away. Worth 10 times the amount of the course.

a Creativelive Student
 

I watched this class live, read Mike's The Pumpkin Plan and am now about to buy the class. I think I am pretty tough critic and I think this is a GREAT class. I highly recommend it.

Student Work

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