Hey there. Welcome back to The Hair of the Dog podcast. Question for you. Have you ever gotten to a sales session and then thought to yourself, oh, man, I screwed something up along the way, and I'm seeing the results of this right now. Well, yes. Still happens to me on occasion doing this for almost 14 years, and I've got a story for you and we'll be joined by my friend Heather,

who is going to help me unravel the negative thought spiral that I was in in a recent situation. So stay tuned. Welcome to The Hair of the Dog podcast. If you are a pet photographer, ready to make more money and start living a life by your design, you've come to the right place. And now, your host pet photographer, travel addict,

chocolate martini connoisseur, Nicole Begley. Hey everybody. Welcome back to The Hair of the Dog podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Begley. And man, I had prerecorded oodles of podcasts prior to the summit. 'cause I knew I was traveling in August and the summit was coming up, so I really like banked a ton of of podcasts. So I haven't recorded one in quite some time.

So this is like Heather's here, Heather Lahtinen, our head ninja of mindset, butt kicking and, and so much that when I went to go send her a link, I was like, what program do I use to record my podcast? So if this feels a little rusty, it's just because I had pre banked so many and a little out of practice,

but as Heather's here to help me get back on track. So welcome back to the podcast, Heather. Thank you so much for having me. And what makes this even more fun, this your first episode being back, is you have issues, okay? And we need, tell me about it. We need to address these issues because I think this is just gonna be so fun and delightful to help coach you through this.

Can you tell us what's been going on? Oh my goodness. All right. So where do I even start? I had an s o s Voxer to Heather like two days ago, guys. This is within like 48 hours. And this all happened, okay, where do I even start? I start with, I had a client book a session in around Christmas time,

around December, like middle of December for a Christmas gift for his very serious girlfriend. And in the past, I generally, my gift certificate rules have always been in my business. That's like you gift the whole thing. Like you gift like one of my packages or like, there's no gifting a session fee, except I have always let couples gift a session fee.

So long as I went over the, like, you know, my full experience, like the plan, the price, all the things. So for this one, I was like, yeah, okay, sure. And so booked all good and there were, oh gosh, where do we start with the assumptions that I made? Well, first of all,

I'm just curious from a business standpoint, what, what did you sell this person? How much and what was included? Okay, gotcha. So it was a session fee, and then there was a, a travel fee on, so it was an out of town session and yeah. And then the, with that, and then it would be, and then there would be a small product credit.

So it ended up being like a $2,000, $2,000 sale for the, the gift certificate. Part of that was a travel fee, but my travel fees end up morphing into product credits when they spend over a certain point. Anyway. Do you guys hear Cammy in the background? Sorry, she hears me talking. She's like, why am I my great,

I don't understand, but you're all pet photo photographers, so you're, you're, it's good. Exactly. It's fine. Anyway, so that's what it was. And then it was, you know, always assumption number one that I made is that this person will be very involved in the session. Assumption number two that I made this person will be very involved in the sales session.

And assumption number three that I made is that, you know, people listen to all the things you say and nobody listens to anything and nobody reads anything. So, yeah, no, it's all good. Like, there's, there's no fault of anyone other than like, I should have. I, and well, and here's the other assumption that I made,

or not an assumption. It was just something that happens when you, this is a, a person that I have an acquaintance, a relationship with. Yes. You know, so it's not like a, a cold client outta the blue where I am like over all of the things. And you know, I let them know X, Y, z cross,

all the dot i's cross all the T's, t's not all the i's. Yes. Z doing it the other way doesn't really help anyone. And I know this person's financial well, not all the details, but I know that affording a session is not an issue. So that was another assumption that I made that I think that I let my, I didn't follow all of my processes as I usually do.

Okay. I need you to slow down and back up for a second. So this, they get a product credit. How much is a product credit? Well, with the travel fee, it was like $2,000 per month. Yeah. Okay. You keep telling me that. What is the product credit? Well, the product credit is 8 75. Okay,

perfect. Thank you. I needed that number. Okay. Okay. 8 75 product credit. And I'll, and I'll come back to that because I, I, that's important. Okay. But take me through, if this were a cold client, say a husband buying this gift for his wife. Yep. He contacts you at Christmas and he says, I wanna gift to my wife a photography session.

Yep. You would charge, if it were, let's say it were local, you would charge 8 75 and that would, that's a product credit. And then the couple is then involved in the shoot and the IPS session, the planning and the Yeah, the whole yard. Okay. What would you, how would you approach that in terms of education? Like,

take me through that process if this were a cold client before we get to this acquaintance friend. Oh yeah, absolutely. Okay. So it would be basically me talking about what I specialize in. Well, first I would ask about the wife, the dog, the relationships, blah, blah, blah, the story. And then I would talk about,

you know, well, and I would ask, have you, do you have any actually back up. I have a new way to ask now that I didn't back then. And what I would ask now is, what do you value most out of the session to get the values that they're really like wanting to, to capture and, and do that from there.

But back in December, I wasn't asking that question. It was more, you know, what do you wanna do with the images afterwards? And then I would go into my spiel about what I specialize in and, you know, the custom wall art, yada, yada, yada. This is how the process works. You know, we have the session fee now,

and then we do the session, and then we order things after. This is what most people spend, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, we kind of walk through the process and all the different options and talk about wall art and talk about the, the final. So this would be a Zoom call you would do this on sometimes Zoom,

sometimes phone, yeah. Okay. Okay. So you essentially, this person hires you, they don't know anything about it. You explain everything. This is what I specialize in. What are you interested in? Tell me about your relationships. So you gather all this information, you share your packages and your pricing, and what typically people spend. So they have a baseline of like,

well, like, I'm going to be spending more, like that's pretty Yeah, clear. A hundred percent. Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. Yeah. And I will sometimes give them the option of, hey, which I didn't this time, but I'll sometimes give them the option of, Hey, do you want to do like a pre whatever,

like a, a pre-purchase package? Yes. Or, you know, do you want to just do the session and then we'll kind of see what they want and then, you know, okay. Do it that way. So a little bit more customized. Am I correct in saying, based on what you said a few moments ago, that you skipped all of this?

No, not necessarily. I did not go into as much detail. So it was still, yeah, absolutely. Would love to do that. She'll absolutely love that. Here's how the process works, here's what this is. And then, and I did say, you know, after the session, then we choose what we want, and usually clients spend X to Y.

But then I think with the amount of time that goes by, you know, and again, it wasn't the, yeah, I don't know. I just, it just, I didn't spend as much time making sure, like all those details were like, were covered Yeah. Multiple times. Especially with that timeframe. Okay. So take, tell us what happened and then we'll,

we'll unpack all of the assumptions. Tell us the, the scenario. You, you do the session session and you schedule a call. Well, actually, okay, so first thing was when I do the session well, and let's go back to, let's go through the whole process. Yes. So the next step of the process is planning call, which I usually do with the gift recipient,

which is what I did here in this piece too. So then we're talking about the session, we're talking about artwork, we're talking about all the things. We're planning the session, talking about clothes, doing it all. So that's fine. So I did that with the gift recipient, and then I get to the session and, and find out from the gift purchaser,

that was like, oh, like there was no intention really, of, it was really just for the gift recipient and her dogs. Like, it was not necessarily like a, a couple session, like there, the, the person that purchased a gift certificate was not like, invested in this as much as my normal, or, yeah, yeah,

yeah. Just because it was truly like, she's gonna love this. Here's a gift. You know, like, I am not, I don't value it as much as I know she will. You know what I mean? So that was kind of the first one where it was like, oh yeah, no, I wasn't even gonna be in any the,

the, I wasn't even gonna be involved. But, you know, she wanted some pictures make it all too all. Yeah, exactly. But, but she wanted pictures with all of them, understandably. Yes. So he was like, of course. So anyway, so we had the session and then we're finalizing like, sales session stuff. And you know,

I reach out and it's like, Hey, are you gonna be on the sales session? Just like, what budget are we looking at? Da, da da. Like, with questions and didn't hear anything prior, didn't hear back, which I was like, huh. Which is not unusual. This person's very busy, often takes a couple days to get back some details.

So then we go to the session or the sales session and it's, you know, what, what every photographer's worst nightmare is Oh, oh, like, oh yeah, no, I like, basically it was just like, here's, here's your credit. Like whatever we already had, like whatever was already paid, let's kind of work within that. And then this person not wanting to ask for more,

you know, that it, it was just an awkward, like, oh shit a moment. Okay. The, this is too vague for me. Okay. I don't even know what you're talking about. What you go into this session, this is on Zoom, the sales session. Yeah. Zoom. Yeah. Okay. You're on Zoom. You say you have this $875 credit,

here's what this could get you, but are you, you know, are you interested in these other things? And she said, okay, back it up. So we start the Zoom sales session, and we had already been talking about like the wall art and this and that, and where we were gonna decorate and whatnot. So we start the Zoom sales session as usual with,

here's the slide show, let's talk about, here's the different types of wall art. Here's the finishes. We decide on like a gorgeous guild canvas with a big, chunky, beautiful frame, a big pano image. It's gonna be gorgeous. So we're doing that. And then we talk about the album for the other images. And so, you know,

we're, we're building that out. And, and well, and even before that, like she did ask, you know, just, well, what's the price for this or that and blah. So we're going over that. And I sent her, you know, the digital product guide so she could kind of have that up and see as we go through.

And then, you know, once we decided like, man, we really want this small piece and we really want the album. And that ends up being about $5,000. And it's like, oh man. But, and then, and then she just asked, she's like, wait, what exactly, what credit do I have again? Or this and that.

So I explained that to her to tell her. She's like, oh, she's like, I've already used up all my Christmas and birthday gift. I think like just not wanting to ask for, you know, like, you don't wanna go to ask the gift giver of like, oh, hey, by the way, can I have like more than twice as much?

Did it not occur to her in that moment that she could pay for it? Potentially. I mean, I, yeah, I don't, no. Like if my, if somebody gave me that gift card, I would assume that anything I purchased additionally would be me. Like, yeah, I've exhausted the gift card. The gift card was $875, and I have this $5,000 order,

so I'm gonna do some quick math and see what I owe, what I owe. But I wouldn't like assume that I was gonna ask the gift giver for more for my gift. Right. But I wasn't gonna point that out. Oh, this is so interesting. Okay, so what happened next? Okay, so then we go through everything and then,

let's see. Okay, then Gift giver comes in towards the end and it's just 'cause they're gonna go ready to go to dinner and whatnot, and we kind of share our favorites and this is what we're thinking and blah, blah, blah. And then, oh, God, I don't, I think I like blacked it out the exact words what word said.

But basically it was just like, well, and we had already decided before Gift Giver came in, it was like, all right, like, this isn't gonna get decided right now. Let me send you an email with these couple things we talked about in a couple of different options. Because we were talking about some different ways to do it, whether doing one of my classic series wall pieces that's not as expensive as the signature pieces,

you know, and just some different, different options. So I'm like, let me send you that email. And so, so gifted giver came in, shared some of the images, love them, like, oh my gosh, these are so great. And then basically we just kind of ended the call of like, all right, you guys go to dinner.

'cause at that point, we had been on Zoom for a good hour and like 40 minutes going through everything and talking about like, the different finishes and all that stuff. So it was time to wrap it up anyway, so I just, let me send you that email, get back to me, you know, tomorrow or the next day. And like,

let's, let's like regroup and move forward. She's like, all right, great. So then, you know, we'll walk away and I'm just like, then all the thoughts start. So Miss thought, Heather, that's where the self-doubt, the laying in bed. Like, damn, how much did I mess this up? And then, and then,

then the thoughts start to cascade into, now that you have a relationship with this person, you're like, did I just mess up my relationship with this person? What is this person thinking of me? Is this person thinking that I'm like doing some crazy bait and switch? You know, like unethical sales strategies thing? Like all the thoughts, like, wow.

And they, they cascaded pretty quickly compounded, but it started, it started with one thought. So client says, recipient says, oh, I've exhausted all of my gifts. Ooh, she hesitates. And you instantly had a thought. What was the thought? Hmm. I don't actually know what that thought was. I think I cascaded pretty quickly to like,

'cause I still, you know, for as much money work as I try to work on, like there is still an uncomfortableness about asking for money in certain situations. So I think then my next thought was like, oh, what is gonna look like? I actually, my thought probably was something about like, oh my God, how are they gonna be happy with what they're gonna get at this price?

But I don't wanna give things away. Mm. In order to like, make people happy. Like the, you know what I mean? It was just like, the thought was basically, oh, how if this becomes not as straightforward, or like, I think I kind of cascaded into that. Like, what are they gonna be thinking about this?

And then how's that gonna affect relationship? So would you think relationship, but the original thought was maybe she didn't understand, or she's disappointed or she's unhappy. Maybe a disappointed of like, oh, am I not gonna be able to get all the things that I wanna get? Okay. She's disappointed. Is a thought that you had because she hesitated and made those few comments about the gift,

and then you, you felt something in that moment as well. You were feeling trepidation. Whoa. Okay. Okay. Big word. Okay. Because you were thinking she's disappointed. Is that what caused that feeling? Well, I forgot again. 'cause there were so many thoughts since then. So I'm trying to get back into that, that moment thought.

I think, I mean, one of the things you said to me is like, oh, no, I think I screwed this up for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. That was a thought. Okay. I said over a lot they ran deep Heather. I know, I know. But it, the reason I'm like drilling into this one is because there was,

here's why. All of those thoughts that compounded started on a baseline assumption thought, oh, I this up. Yes. Yeah, a hundred percent. That was an early thought. If this first thought hadn't occurred, the other ones wouldn't be there. So it's Yeah, a hundred percent. Yep. So if you're feeling like is the thought that is the mino thought I mess,

I'm, I messed this up. Basically like from the very beginning, like I, this should have been a all inclusive package. Like, oh. And then, you know, I mess it up and, and basically the, the positioning of it and, and me going lighter on my education pieces of it than I usually do. So it was just like,

yeah, that was, that was definitely the first. Okay, so the thought is all the best cascaded. Correct. Because here's the thing, if we believe that we messed something up, then we've just opened like the neural pathway for the rest of those thoughts to just flood in. Okay. But when you are thinking, oh, I messed this up.

Oh my goodness, what were you feeling? Oh, like, just like a tightness in my chest and a nervousness, like, almost like a, a scared of like, what are the impacts of this mistake gonna be? Oh, okay. So there was some like fear, but I think trepidation. Yeah. You had said that. I've already said that.

Heather. Yeah, because, but I think that that feeling came from the next series of thoughts about what does this mean about our relationship and Yeah. You know, like, how much did I screw this up? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. And what, and me projecting the thoughts that this other person had that didn't necessarily have,

like, I don't know what thoughts they have, but Wow, I was projecting quite a few. Oh my gosh, you had a million thoughts, none of which were good and you were projecting all of them. But if you go back to the first thought, which is, I messed this up. If we could like intervene in our minds for a second and say,

okay, what am I thinking? Oh, I'm thinking I messed this up. Like, if you would've come to me and said, Heather, I think I messed this up. I would've said, well, did you? And I would've been like, I don't know. I think so. I'll let you know. I'll turned out. Like, but,

but here's the thing. Maybe you did, maybe you did, maybe you didn't. I mean, the first thing I do is question the thought. Like, is this true? Yeah. Because maybe it's not even true that I messed it up and, and messed it up. Could be strong word. Correct. I mean, maybe the, the,

the actual thought is like, oh, do I need to re-look at these processes and do I need to be a stickler for my processes? Yes. Could I have, so I did learn a lesson communicated better. Yes. Yeah. Like, like I just, I, I just, I feel like the lesson I learned is that acquaintances and friends need more education than even the,

the, the random person that's hiring me from, you know. Yeah. From whatever lead. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You are really good at quickly getting to that point where you recognize the lesson and what you need to do the next time. It's like, oh, okay. I need to follow my processes. Like, duh. No kidding.

That's why I have them, and I didn't. So, okay. I mean, did you mess up or did you just have a situation that taught you a lesson? Oh, yeah. Right. Correct. B I choose B. Yeah. Although that lesson did go on for a good 48 hours. So fast forward when I sent you my second s o s,

which was the next afternoon, we finished that sales session the night before. And then I get a voice memo from the gift purchaser the next day. And I'm out and about. I'm like gonna, the grocery store, I have to like, pick up Cammy. I'm just like all over the place. And I'm like, oh my God, I can't listen to this now because like the Apple voice memos,

I've never saved them. And I didn't wanna mess it up if I had to save them. I'm like, do I need to take notes? But I'm in the car, but then the Bluetooth in my car, I can't like respond. So I can't listen to it. So I've just had this like, for an hour I'm out like looking at this voice memo like they do in the movies of just like,

dun dun where like gets really close to it. You're like, what's it gonna say? Oh my God. It's, and then I'm going into all the stories of like this person calling me and telling me that like, I am just basically a terrible human and dah dah, and like, just going down like the gauntlet of like, I got upset.

But that's because, but the reason is because the baseline thought was I messed up. Yeah. Yeah. So if you believe that you messed up, you're going to react based on fear in thinking the worst case scenario because you believe that you messed up. Yeah, true. If you didn't, like, seriously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No,

I could, yeah. Yeah, go ahead. If you didn't have, if you never had that thought, and if, maybe if there was like a slight miscommunication, but your thought was, oh, this is fine. We just need to like iron this out. Like, if you had that thought and then you saw a voice memo from this person,

how would you react? Yeah. Oh, different. Yeah. It would definitely be like, oh, okay. Let's, well, let's work this out. It would just be like, we probably would've, I'm guessing you probably would've listened to it straight away because you wouldn't have been worried. True. You'd been like, you probably just, or even if I didn't,

probably something, even if I didn't listen right away. 'cause I wanted to make sure I could like, write down any notes if there was like any things like that I just needed to make notes on. But I wouldn't have had that sense of dread for the hour. Correct. Correct. That's exactly right. I would've like, oh, I need to listen to that when I get home.

Yeah. Yeah. You caused yourself, you know, I mean, you didn't mean to, but you caused yourself suffering because you were reacting from the baseline assumption of a thought that you never questioned. Right. You, I messed this up period. Yep. You had actually said to me at one point, prior to the voice memo, you had said,

do I owe them an apology? Should I be, should I be messing them? And I'm like, for what? Well, I messed up. I'm, I should have communicated. Okay. Could you have communicated better and followed your process? Yes. Yeah. Right. Okay. But was, was there any real catastrophe here? No. No.

And it ends up being totally fine. Like, so fast forward for the rest, I come home and I listen to the voice memo and it's just like, yeah, what does he say? It's just like, oh, hey, you know, so-and-so's gonna be in touch about the photo stuff. I wanna ask you this, this question about something unrelated.

Yeah, totally unrelated. Completely unrelated. No, no, a hundred percent didn't even care. Just like, Hey, you know, you know, so-and-so follow up with you about that. But I just wanted to ask about this. He didn't even care. Yeah. So I was like, oh, oh. So then it's like, oh, relief.

And then later I get an email from her just like, all right. Yeah. You know, I talked to so and so. Yeah, let's do this, let's do the, the frame and the album. So it's done. So it's done. But I had a good 48 hours of some major stress. Yeah, you sure did. Like,

straight up, like, oh yeah. I mean, you, you, you were just really beating yourself up about, you know, what you could have done differently, what you should have done, and all of the assumptions you made. And listen, I think there's value in looking back at the situation and asking yourself what I could have done better.

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. Fair. But like, the spiraling in between, where's where, what, how, what's that doing? How's that benefit of that? It's not, obviously, it's why I talked to you. Yeah, I know. And I'm, and I asked you like, you're in the sale. So when you had first explained it to me,

you, you did not tell me specifically what you said, what she had said in this session. You just like explained the overall story. Right. And I came back to you and I said, what were her exact words? Because I had a feeling that the, the client recipient said words and then your brain went kapal. Oh yeah. And spun them.

So like, if we look at this just as objectively as possible, client says words, and then you have thoughts about those words. And your thoughts were, I mess this up. Okay. And then it spiraled. And then I have thoughts about other people's thoughts that I don't even know what their thoughts are. Oh, my word. The, oh my gosh.

You had thoughts about the thoughts, judgment about the thoughts, then projecting the thoughts about what possibly could be thinking, who was thinking what? I mean, it's just all over. That's what brains do. I always say brains are gonna brain. Yeah. Like, that's what it's gonna do. And when you find yourself caught in a spiral like that,

and you know how, you know you're in a spiral is because it's all jumbled in your head and nothing is making sense, and you can't think about anything else. And it's just like all over the place. It's consuming. Yeah. All consuming. So that's how you know, you're in a spiral. And when you get yourself in that situation, you just recognize,

oh my gosh, I'm, I'm spiraling on compound, which you did. You recognized it. And what my job is to say, let's get to the baseline assumption, the thought, the belief that's causing this ripple effect. And let's examine that one. So just for the sake of education, you know, you're thinking, I, I screwed this up,

I messed this up. You know, which could be true or not true. Like some people will argue with me, they're like, Heather, but it's true. And I'm like, well, I don't care. How does it feel to think it? Yeah, right. Exactly. Right. Okay. So even if you could have done something better,

what what is also true in this situation? I mean, definitely a, a thought that could replace that is, you know, this shows to me how important my processes are to follow and work it out. Like it'll work out. It always works out. Yeah. Like there might be a conversation, but it will work out. You know, like,

oh my gosh, I have a question for you. You right. To your face. We talked about this in those episodes where you had the travel situations that you had to like leap into action. Yeah. Okay. Okay. What is the difference between those situations and this one? Oh, the money involved, I think. Hmm. The asking people for money and me never wanting to feel like,

Hmm, I don't know if this is it or not, but like, I, I, I, I don't know, it might be part of it, of I am even more cognizant with this person or someone that, that I know has plenty of money that I don't want them to think that I am someone that's like, just doing, like taking advantage.

Yes. Where, you know what I mean? So that I think was the, like what was happening here that compounded it even more. But even if it wasn't, if like, if I had no idea about this person because they were a random person thing, I still there, there, I've gotten much better over how many 13 years, almost 14 years of running this business.

But it is still sometimes, you know, like if I'm in a sales session and we're getting up to like a $8,000 sale, I'm just like, a little bit like, do they know what they just ordered? Like, oh God, I gotta tell 'em, oh, what are they gonna think? Where this is funny 'cause I just had a big commercial client that,

I mean, I literally just sent out a $10,000 invoice yesterday without a care in the world. Because, you know, why, why? What's the difference? The business is paying it and the people I'm dealing with, like, it's just coming out of a budget somewhere. It's not coming out of like their, their pocket. You know what I mean?

So it becomes a little bit Well, it's, it's coming out of their pocket of their budget. They, they're choosing to spend it on you, the commercial, but so is a person. Yeah. But they don't get to use that for a vacation if they'd rather it's the company they work for is money. So it's easier spent. Well, well,

that's a thought. That is a thought. That is a thought for sure. That's not true. There's so many thoughts. You, I mean, we just make it up to like make sense in our brain. But that's not true. And you just said, you know, well, a person has to possibly decide between this and a vacation. That's not true either.

I know, I know, I know. Heather you. I, I feel like you are And this is entrapment. Entrapment. Yeah. Oh, that's true. I do. But I like to just like poke holes in our thoughts. I know. For real. For sure. Yeah, absolutely. Like if somebody, somebody chooses. So the thought is if you slide a,

an $8,000 invoice over to a person and you are, and you're feeling nervous, it's because you are having a thought that is causing you to feel nervous. And that, that thought for me, I think might be the, like, what are they gonna think of me? Or are they gonna think, like, is there gonna be some sort of judgment on me versus of these prices of,

you know, 'cause you go to Costco and go to Canvas for whatever. But that's obviously not what I'm selling. But yeah. So it's, I think my thought then comes from the judgment that I am projecting that they're gonna have on me. I can barely even follow that logic. But you guys out there and hear the dog lands, you know what I'm talking about.

I'm sure you have it too. That's why we wanted to share this today too. You're actually, actually that's, you're having two thoughts in that moment, is what I heard. One is this is a lot of money. Right. Just says who, right? Yeah. Right. And the second thought is, will they find value in this amount of money?

Mm. So if you are, if you looked at $8,000 and didn't think it was a lot of money, like if you just decided $8,000 is not a lot of money, $8,000 is just an eight with three zeros and a comma. Yeah. Like it was totally neutral and I value my products and you projected how much you value your products onto your client.

Listen, projection can work both ways. Mm. This is very important. If all of us are able to project our negative thoughts onto people, which we're all extremely talented at, it's like a gift we have. If you're able to do that, you're also able to do the opposite, which is to think this is the deal of a lifetime. This is the best value they're gonna get.

This, this guild canvas is unfreaking believable. I mean, this is just beautiful art of their dog. This is crazy. What a good deal this is. To have these kinds of feelings to see your dog in art on your wall. Like if you really believed that this was the deal of a lifetime and the $8,000 was cheap and you projected that thought towards the client,

I just wonder how that would feel and work out. Oh, it feels totally different because I actually have gotten way better at that. Even just recently, I was adding, 'cause I recently, over the past couple months, have swapped over all my vendors. Well, this became another thought too, because I still had some of my old products on there because I didn't wanna take them off yet.

Just because I have some clients still like in the pipeline that have seen those. So right now I've just added the guild and the farmhouse and the really high end stuff. So then that was another thought of like, oh, I've changed my product offering since we talked in December. You know, so that added to the like, oh, like the not properly educated because there's new things.

Mm. Even though it's 'cause approached as like, Hey, I just have this new, this new new product that is flipping amazing anyway. But as I was updating my price list on my website and going through and putting the new things up there, I mean, I've come to new terms with these numbers where I'm just like, hmm, yeah, no.

Like they is so worth it. And anything less, like it's gotten to the point now. 'cause there, there have been times where, you know, you start to second question, you start to second guess of, oh man, maybe I don't have as many clients coming in. Ah, am I too expensive? Should I lower my prices? But it's to the point now where I look at my price list and I'm like,

hell no, I'm not lowering these prices. Like, they are so worthwhile because these products are so gorgeous, so gorgeous. And I don't know, it's funny because I literally had that, like it was a new level. I had already had that shift. But as I was working on adding these things to my price list over the past couple weeks,

it was a new level of excitement about them. And, and it's just funny how these opportunities start to come too. Like I had a random realtor call me about like, just talking about it doesn't work for this fall. 'cause the timeline's too short. But a previous client of mine told her about me and she wants to do some sort of like,

partnership this or that. I'm like, oh, you know, let's, let's think about that. She has a lot of family clients too. I have a photographer friend in town that's an amazing family photographer. I'm like, what if we partnered with the three of us and then people that have just the kids can have this family session. People with fur kids have me.

Anyway, so that happened same day. The same day. Then I was at the barn and one of the moms out there, she has two younger kids that ride ponies. Adorable. She's like, ah, Nicole, I need a Christmas card at the horse show this weekend. Can you bring your camera? Yes. And like, take a photo?

And I was like, yeah, sure. And she's like, just charge me whatever. Just like, just let me know. I'm like, yeah, let me get back to you tomorrow. So I was like, okay, time out. Lesson number one, somebody asked you to do something like that. You don't have to give them a price right away.

Yes. Like was like, yeah, let me get back to you tomorrow. So then I could think about like, okay man, what is worthwhile for me dragging my camera to this horse show? And I'm already taking so much stuff into 1300 pound horses. And so I was like, all right, I mean this local little, like at our barn,

like 500 bucks, three digital files, call it a day fine. But I was like, oh, this family, like, they like nice things. She would love one of these guild canvases. Mm. So I told her, I sent her an email and it's like, hey, absolutely, we'll just do the Christmas cards, but I have this new painted portrait that is absolutely freaking stunning.

Let me bring a sample out to the barn one night when you guys are gonna be there. If you'd like to do one of those, like do $500 for the digitals to get your Christmas cards that they're moving. So that she's like, I need to get 'em out like stacked. I'm like, no problem. And then, you know, if you wanna do the painted one,

you can put that money towards this. And she's like, oh my God. Yeah. She's like, yeah, let's do this. We'll get the Christmas card out and then we'll, we'll figure out the painting. So it's just like, because I had this new belief of how ridiculously amazing these are, and I literally got my painting sample like three days ago,

the day before my sales session with this, and then also with all these other opportunities that just like happened this week. And yeah, it's, it, it makes it so much easier to just tell people about it when you believe in it. Oh, you're not kidding. Shocking. Shocking. Like that's, that is the lesson for the day. When you believe in your pricing and you value it,

you are so excited. You tell everyone, you told her, you're like, you've gotta see this. I just got the sample in. This is amazing. It's like gorgeous. It's so stunning. You would love it. And, and then you are excited. So guess what? That's like you, you know, she catches that it's contagious. She's excited.

And then you bring it in and you show her, and then you're gonna take a beautiful photo and you're just gonna be like, Hey listen, you, you need to do this. It's like no-brainer. And and she'll make a decision whether she, you know, wants to or not. But because you're feeling confident and excited, you act from a place of courage and you tell everyone.

But if you are feeling hesitant, nervous, scared, I'm stealing from people, any of those thoughts around the pricing of anything, you are always going to hesitate to talk to people. You're not gonna be as enthusiastic when you do. And then your results are, are going to reflect that thinking. Yep. So it just comes down to belief. What advice do you have for someone Heather that's like,

I'm trying to believe, and they know they need to raise their prices, but they don't necessarily believe in their prices where they are now. Like how does one start to believe? Because I know you're gonna say just choose a new belief, but what does that actually look like? Because I'm sure it's one of those things too, you believe for a minute and then you're like drop down into doubt.

And it, it is not something that happens overnight. But how do we keep encouraging ourselves to choose a new belief? Okay, you're right. I do say it really is as simple as a decision. I'm just gonna choose to believe in this. But I understand that that's not as easy as it sounds to actually execute. So what I want you to start to do is to drop in the belief that it's possible to believe it.

Belief. Sometimes what I say is belief. Yep. Somebody will, I think it was like a $1,200 price point somebody was talking to me about about, and she said, I'm just not yet. I'm just not there yet in terms of the belief of this price point. And I said, okay, that's fair. Do you want to believe it?

That's the question. Do you want to, you don't believe it yet? I got you. Do you want to believe it? And she said yes. And I said, okay, then we're on our way there because we're just going to just like put this on the map as a possibility. There's the possibility that I can believe in this price because I want to.

That's where the thinking starts. So for anyone listening, your marketing, your pricing, your belief in what you can do in your business just starts with, I wanna believe this. And then how can we just, you know, start to sort of morph into an actual belief where like, yes, this is, this is true for me. Now I also do say that for someone starting out,

you need to pick a price that you believe in so that you're excited and it's easy to sell to get some experience. And that might be lower than you'd like at first. But you know, if, if I'm a $10,000 photographer and I, I'm like, ooh, I wanna be a $10,000 photographer, but I'm not sure that's like way out, but I can really believe that I can do a $2,000 sale.

Like yes, I can get behind that with like every fiber of my being. Then go do those $2,000 sales and say, I want to believe that I'm a $10,000 five or whatever it is who caress. You know, you just, I want to believe that I'm not there yet, but I do believe in this number. So you go execute on that number to sort of like fortify and build the foundation for this new belief.

So I would say it starts with, okay, I wanna believe this, I wanna believe this. Like, I just ask people, do you want to believe that? And they say yes. And I'm like, good. Okay. Done. Because then you just start thinking this is a possibility. I mean, at one point it, it was like new for you to charge over a thousand dollars,

right? Yeah. Right. And you wanted to, there was one point where a $3,000 sale, I would be like dancing on the ceiling. Yeah. Which don't get me wrong, I'm still very appreciative of any $3,000 sale. Yeah, of course. I'm not saying I'm not, but that is basically a, like a, a normal, like a bottom,

like a lower level sale at this point. Yes, yes. Yeah. But at one time, 3000 might've as well been a million. 'cause it was just like, so, but you wanted to believe in it. You didn't believe in it and then you slowly, you, you made it like a possibility. There's this training, I'm like kicking around in my head for Elevate that I wanna call the possibility formula.

I love it. Yeah. It's, it's in rough draft in my mind. But, but I, I just like wanna plant a seed of what's possible. You believe this is possible. Yes. And sometimes that, that's all it takes to sort of put you in motion towards truly being able to drop in belief for that number. So I think that's how you start.

Yeah, I like it. And I wanna add to that too. You can probably also ask yourself the question like, if I were a two thou or a $10,000 photographer, like what would a $10,000 photographer do in this situation? Like how would they act? How would they think, how would they believe? And you're not gonna have all those answers at first,

but if you're always asking those questions, you're going to start to get clarity on that. And you're going to start to see the differences in how a $10,000 photographer shows up in their business versus a $500 photographer. So you start making those little stair steps. That is a really important point. Do you know what I'm looking at right now on my monitor,

my desktop on my machine? It says, what does million dollar Heather need? Okay, if you asked me that question, like if my coach were to ask me that question, I'd probably get frustrated. I'd be like, I don't know if I knew what she needed, I would be doing. You know, like I get that. But the reason I have that there is for exactly what you just described to sort of plant the seed that like,

how could I start thinking like that level of entrepreneur? I don't, I don't know. I don't know. But I, I believe that I can know. Do you see that subtle difference there? I don't know. I don't have the answers for you, but I believe that I can get them. So I'm just going to put that in the possibility formula.

The po my possibility bank like that, that could happen. That is a real thing. Maybe in the future, I don't know how, but I just believe it's possible. And sometimes that's all you need to inspire yourself into more action. Yep. I love it. Oh my gosh, this has been so good. I hope you guys found this helpful,

cringing along with my experience. We've all been there and even me who's been doing this for a long time still finds myself here once in a while. So I thought I would share it with you. 'cause I thought you guys would understand and, and feel not so alone. When you are in that place of spiraling of other people's thoughts that you're projecting of other people's thoughts,

that you have no idea what their thoughts actually are. I would like to thank you for your vulnerability because as a leader it can sometimes be, I don't know, not scary, maybe a little unnerving to share your challenges or where you're struggling because people tend to think you have it all together, but situations are going to happen and we're human. So you still have thoughts.

And I think the most important lesson here is get yourself a coach. Get yourself someone that you can bounce these thoughts off of because you're, you sounded to me like a little disappointed that it took 48 hours, but for most people, 48 hours would be a gift over weeks or months of spinning. Mm. You know, like you actually have, have significantly shortened your refractory period.

Yeah. 48 hours is great. Could you imagine if I were sitting on these thoughts for the next week, two weeks month, I'm not gonna be doing anything to market my business, I'm not gonna be doing anything to move towards those goals because I'm gonna be focusing all my energy attention on these thoughts that are not serving me. And not even true.

The impact is so much greater than people realize. For that reason it takes up a lot of mental bandwidth. But also if we were to project this out, if you had all of these thoughts and you didn't clean them up and then you maybe got together with these people in the future, it would dictate your behavior around them because you would always be hesitant and on edge because you would be afraid and that would impact the relationship like this.

Then you actually, your biggest fear actually does come true. Exactly right. Because you That's exactly right. Then just make it that way based on the thoughts that you have and then your changed behavior because of the thought one, one thought like this can like really significantly negatively impact your life. Like it's that big. But also in the contrary, one thought like this cleaned up,

changes everything. 'cause you start to recognize like the reason you shortened your refractory period is because you recognized it was happening and you were like, whoa, whoa, whoa. My thoughts Heather, I need help. My thoughts are getting away from me. And then, you know, and we honed in on it and cleared it all up pretty quickly. So,

and the, that is actually the reason you are where you're at and you're so successful is because you still have the thoughts, you just work through them faster, you clean 'em up and then you move forward and things are always like positively compounding for you because of that thought work. Right. Because I believe everything's always working out for me. That's right.

'cause it is brilliant. Alright guys, we're gonna wrap this up, but we'll see you next week. Thanks for being here with us. Let us know if you found this helpful. Let us know. If you've had a situation like this, please tell me I'm not the only one alone or with these thoughts. And we will talk to you guys next week.

Bye everybody. Thanks for listening to the Hair of the Dog podcast. This was episode number 214. If you wanna check out the show notes for access to any of the resources that we mentioned, simply go to www.hairofthedogacademy.com/ 2 1 4. Thanks for listening to this episode of Hair of the Dog Podcast. If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute to leave a review and while you're there,

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