Allow Yourself to Be Supported | Virtual Assistant for Photographers
If I could rewind a few years, to my early days of starting my own business - I would have one piece of advice for myself. And it’s simple:
ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE SUPPORTED
As a virtual assistant for photographers, I have such privilege to see many photography businesses up close & personal. From the inquiries I receive, to all the amazing people I have worked with, to my own personal experience - there is a common theme that sets you apart from success versus struggle.
And that is trying to do everything yourself.
I know sooooo well how attractive it is to do everything yourself. It is YOUR business, and you want to be hands on in every aspect. It provides the very sense of control you crave when taking a risk.
But the DIY mindset is one of the quickest ways to shoot yourself in the foot. I can’t tell you how many times I made things way more difficult than they needed to be, because outsourcing wasn’t even on my radar. I spent most of my business-life like that. When I finally started allowing myself to be supported…my business took off.
There are a million ways to outsource as a business owner (some might surprise you) and we’ll get into that later, but first…
The DIY mindset is a perspective through which you approach your business. It’s the belief that because you are a small business owner, you need to be hands-on in every single aspect. While you do want to be proactive in managing your business, there is a difference between management and executing everything yourself. When you allow yourself to be supported, you shift out of the DIY mindset.
When your mindset is fixed on “I can do it myself”, you are missing opportunities and leaving $$ on the table. You will automatically jump to find solutions that require YOU, instead of the ones that strategically make sense for the business.
I encourage you to release that grasp a little (I personally know how hard this is to do!) and allow yourself to start thinking like a CEO. It is your job to help your business make $$, while keeping a work/life balance that works for you, and doing work you love. It is NOT your job, to execute every task related to your small business.
When you allow yourself to be supported, you suddenly see more opportunities that you would have missed.
If the thought of outsourcing sends alarm bells ringing through your head, I would push you to check on your mindset. If you are coming from a place of scarcity, chances are you are thinking short-term instead of long-term. Zoom out and look where you want your business to end up. How do you strategically get there? What outsourcing makes sense for you?
This part of allowing yourself to be supported might surprise you. While you might be resistant to the thought of outsourcing a big piece of your business (like editing)…could you outsource your grocery shopping?
I invite you to step outside of the box and reverse engineer your life to give yourself more time & energy through allowing yourself to be supported.
I want you to hack your life into the best version of work/life balance you can imagine as a small business owner. Go through all the responsibilities you have every week - both personal and business. And see where you could strategically allow support in order to free up space somewhere else.
Here are some ideas:
Sign up for Hello Fresh or use a grocery delivery program; saves time at the store!
Can you hire a monthly cleaning service for your home?
Use subscription services s to your advantage; from personal care items to your fav Amazon purchases…reduce mental load by automating as many purchases as you can.
Create a set work schedule for yourself, and write it down so you don’t have to remember it (I use Notion)
Get comfy accessories for your office space, so you enjoy being at work. (I love my walking pad!)
Get a DoorDash or GrubHub account, so you can order some meals to yourself while editing.
Outsource a small piece of your business you don’t like doing; my team blogs for over 30 photographers a week. It’s an easy way to outsource something effective/strategic, but not bring on a full VA. This is a great way to dip your toes into business-outsourcing.
Hire someone for reel research or caption writing; if you feel uninspired on social media, hire a social media manager to create a content bank for you! You can almost always find one in photography FB groups.
If you’re ready to really up level your business, hire a VA for client & business management (shameless plug, since this is what I personally do. But I’ve seen it be so financially and mentally beneficially for my clients).
Whatever you decide to do to allow yourself to be supported, you need to take that leap and shift your mindset if you want to step into your potential as a business owner.
The perspective of doing everything yourself is holding you back and making you blind to $$-making opportunities.
If you want more ideas of what to outsource, follow me on IG - I talk about work/life balance alllll the time!
