Featured Creative Episode!Meet Gillie Bird, a fine art luxury wedding photographer in Toronto. She shares how she got her start, the struggle she was facing in her business and the steps she took to transform her bookings - from just 2 weddings booked for 2024 to ELEVEN booked in just 7 weeks, including her first 5-figure contract and a celebrity wedding (a Bachelor Nation couple!).Learn how you can achieve the same results at my free upcoming masterclass on June 5,Overlooked to Fully-Booked.Sign up here:the-ewings.com/otfbAnd find Gillie on instagram at https://www.instagram.com/gilliebird_FREE MASTERCLASS:THE SIMPLE 2-STEP METHOD TORaise your prices by 30% without scaring away wedding bookingsLearn the simple 2-step method I used to book 5 new weddings in just 4 weeks, even after a 45% price increase. It's how Gillie Bird from episode 27 booked 11 weddings in 7 weeks including her first 5-figure contract AND a celeb wedding.June 5, 12:00 ESTSave a seat now:https://the-ewings.com/otfbthesuccessfulcreatives.com

Busy season is just around the corner, which is why we should have a quick chat to make sure overwhelm and burnout aren't a part of your 2024 season. How? With a few simple policies!Let’s explore what this might look like for you…Because this is a beautiful time of year. If you’re anything like me, you’re excited to dive back in. You’re rested and feeling creative and inspired…and also perhaps feeling a nudge from you bank account to get back to work, too!At this point in the year, it’s easy to forget that - fast forward a few months - the end of the season doesn’t look and feel this way to most of us. We’re up late finishing client work, exhausted and stretched but also compelled to take bookings NOW as they come, like squirrels saving up for a long, hard winter.So what’s the key to a healthy balance so that you can maintain your creativity, your inspiration, balance AND profits?Boundaries.Connect with Erica@theewingsstudioEpisode blog postthesuccessfulcreatives.com

Marketing and sales are my jam. But organization, and productivity? Let’s just say I’m a work in progress.Luckily I met THE expert in this area, NJ Shelsby who sat down to give me some tips on how to get more done, with less stress. You see, she was overworked and stressed that it disrupted her family and health so much that she experienced a scary bout of short term memory loss.“I was driving to a doctor’s appointment and I couldn’t remember how to get there. As in, I’m driving around for 10-15 minutes and have no idea on how to get there. And it was very scary and when I got to the doctor’s office, he was panicked for me.”Her doctor told her “you have to take immediate steps to reduce your stress level.”If you’ve been feeling stressed or disorganized, or get to the end of your day and wonder where the time went, never quite making  enough progress on your business - you’re not alone. Check out these stats:Internet usage in the workplace accounts for а 40% loss of productivity (ohhhh, we know the scroll!)Work overload decreases productivity by 68% (so wait, the more work you have, the less gets done?! Oof)Here are 3 quick tips to increase productivity:     1.  Absolute clarity - what’s important RIGHT NOW.     2.  Focus leak boundaries - identify things that steal your focus and set boundaries during your “work times” like turn email notifications off, close tabs, silence your phone, etc.     3.  Structure your schedule around your most productive times:                a. Deep think times - like big projects                b. Shallow focus times - like emails, editing, etc.NJ shares the free software she’s using now to help her get organized and increase productivity, and does a little live coaching that will undoubtedly help.Connect with Erica@theewingsstudioEpisode blog postConnect with NJwww.njshelsby.comFree Training with NJGet out of overwhelmthesuccessfulcreatives.com

A super talented wedding photographer who’s beyond lovely, with a stunning portfolio and over 70 5-star reviews should be fully booked, right? But yet out of 40 inquiries, only 2 booked…that’s a 5% booking rate, ouch. AND she’s getting ghosted a ton.Oh and her prices are a steal.What’s going on?The first mistake is in her initial inquiry email.Well-thought, she provides EVERYTHING her potential new client needs to know about working with her in the first email. No question left unanswered, how helpful is that? It turns out, it’s actually not really helpful at all.You see, sales is a process. And if you offer a higher-ticket service (i.e., a 4-5 figure wedding photographer), it’s not designed to be done in one step.Consider that each step of the sales process should focus on just one thing - move your potential client to the next step.Your website should move them to submit the form. Your emails should move them to schedule a consultation. Your consultation should move them to book.Provide just enough so they want to move one step forward.Revisit your initial inquiry email and see how yours stacks up. Or skip to the shortcut with my free standout email guide and get the exact wording I use in my emails - click here to get your copy now. Connect with Erica@theewingsstudioEpisode blog postthesuccessfulcreatives.com

2023 was a really strange year for me and to be honest with you, it felt like I was riding a roller coaster at times. It was really hard at times. It was really beautiful and easy at times, and it all stemmed from the pivot that I've been making in my business while really starting a 2nd business. It's funny because so many people told me throughout the year, wow, you're crushing it. You are doing so well. So I wanted to give you an inside perspective on exactly what was happening on the inside. Even when on the outside, it looked like everything was incredible.For a deeper dive free training: the-ewings.com/otfbthesuccessfulcreatives.com

Have you ever heard me talk about the booking slump that I hit in 2019, where I didn't book a wedding for, like, I think 4 months? I thought it was 6 months, but I think my brain just exaggerated that fact. In reality, I did not book a wedding for 4 full months and this is after 10 years in business. This is after having our best year ever in 2018. So I want to get into what happened and then how I fixed it.For a deeper dive free training: https://the-ewings.com/otfbthesuccessfulcreatives.com

The end of busy season is a magical time when you get to think about all of the exciting things that you’d love to see incorporated into your business dream clients. More or less bookings, higher prices. All of this is what will become available to you when you first look back at this year, and then really use that information to intentionally build out next year. This is exactly what we're about to get into. 2023 Audit Workbookthesuccessfulcreatives.com

You got together an incredible group of women to create this amazing shades of purple shoot in Providence, and it was such a fun experience. It was the inspiration behind today's episode and why I really felt called to have you on to share your expertise, because you were a master at running that styled shoot. So this is going to be a treat for our listeners. thesuccessfulcreatives.com

When you're repeatedly ghosted, or told you're too expensive, and you wonder why...struggling wedding pros typically look inward first - wondering if it's your work, your website, is it because you don't have enough followers or likes...But here's the crazy thing. It's actually not you at all. It's your marketing.thesuccessfulcreatives.com

In last week's episode, I shared about the nightmare client who changed my business. I talked about the process that I used to make positive changes after the fact, and 4 lessons that you can take and turn a difficult situation into 1 that ends up being really beautiful for your business and your clients. So that was all about what to do after the fact, after you've had a difficult client situation. In this episode, I'm going to help you screen for red flag clients in advance and give you some tips on how to handle them if you've got one currently.thesuccessfulcreatives.com

This is a personal story about my last difficult client (which was about 10 years ago!). This particular wedding gave me cold-sweat nightmares for a month, and changed my business indefinitely.I share the full story in the podcast, but to get right to it, we’ve all had THE ONE. Who makes us question everything we do…or why we do it at all.Here’s how you can turn a painful situation into a win for your business.thesuccessfulcreatives.com

If you asked me last week if I liked the performer Pink, I'd say, Uh, I want to like her. I really like her message. I like what she's all about, but she just doesn't do it for me. Something about her kind of rubs me the wrong way, and I'm just not that into her. However, I did get roped into going to a concert of hers on a girls trip down in Nashville this past weekend. And it inspired this podcast episode because within about an hour I'd say even as little as 5 minutes, I went from a casual, honestly pink avoider. I was like switching the station when pink comes on the radio, to transforming into an absolute super-fan in such a short amount of time. I found it fascinating and I kept thinking about how we could relate this to our business throughout the entire concert, which was incredible, by the way. So I broke it down into 8 lessons. Eight lessons from Pink that will help you become the highly sought, fully booked creative that you know you deserve to be.thesuccessfulcreatives.com

This episode is all about booking destination weddings. If you've been curious about how to get started or you're interested in the strategies of a successful cinematographer on how she's really built her business filled with the weddings that she wants to be shooting. Then get ready for my guest interview with Kelly LaFleur of K. LaFleur Films. thesuccessfulcreatives.com

Today we're talking all about some pricing mistakes. These are the top 5 most common pricing mistakes that I see photographers and creatives make. I'm also going to talk about how you can avoid them and also what to do instead. thesuccessfulcreatives.com

So five things that I don't do now that I'm free from comparison. I don't look at other photographers websites for pricing information. I don't scroll Instagram wishing that I had the weddings that my competitors have. With that in mind, I don't actually even think of local photographers as my competitors at all anymore. I no longer spend countless hours tweaking my website or my price guide. Okay, and I get it. It is really, really easy to fall into the trap of comparison, but we got to get on top of this for ourselves because comparison is honestly the stealer of creativity, of success, of progress, of joy. If you're listening to this and you're like, Mm, I don't really understand what comparison is and why I should even care about it. We're going to talk about why it happens, some strategies to overcome it, and even a way that you can actually leverage comparison to make it work for you, instead of against you.thesuccessfulcreatives.com

Today’s episode welcomes on a guest speaker, his name is Doug Levy and he is a Boston area photographer. Who has gone through this really cool evolution of his career path. Starting as a professional umpire, to wedding photographer, to where he is now, working with big brands and celebrity clients like Drew Barrymore. His story is super interesting, he is very transparent and I cannot wait to share this episode with you. Let’s dive in.thesuccessfulcreatives.com

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38,000 DREAM CLIENTS JUST VIEWED YOUR LATEST POSTWhat could that mean for your business?That's what just happened for wedding photographer Samantha Melanson Photography after she posted a reel she created of her photography experience and portfolio using a TEMPLATE (one of Instagram's latest reel features designed to make them that much easier to create).Ok, let's be real - likely not all 38k were dream clients, but what if even just 1% were? That's 380 dream clients at your digital doorstep, right?If you're a visual artist - from a wedding photographer, filmmaker or videographer, designer or event planner and you're not being intentional with Instagram, I'm here to help change that because Instagram is literally a direct line to your dream clients. So let's talk about the right and the wrong way to use this incredible FREE tool to grow your business, okay?HOW TO GROW ON INSTAGRAM:NO  mindless scrolling NO watching / sharing videosNO posting and immediately jumping from the platformNO comparing yourself to your competitorsYES showing up consistentlyYES engaging with your followersYES building relationships in DMs YES connecting with a new audience YES using Instagram's latest features to push reachI sat down with Sinead Gillespie of Social By Sinead, owner of a Social Media Marketing firm based in Boston to learn how she does it in 3 EASY steps. She shares the exact steps she uses to grow her clients' accounts as well as her own in DETAIL. It's exactly how she left her corporate job and quickly became a 6-figure business owner, and she says it can all be done in just 30 minutes a day using the 10:10:10 Method.Want more? Join the free group and get an instagram self-audit checklist so you can optimize your listing now. The group is filled with driven creatives, free weekly trainings and lots of bonuses.thesuccessfulcreatives.com

Did you know that there are actually just 2 simple steps to get everything you want?These two steps are also the true foundation of building a successful business. In the newest episode of the Successful Creatives podcast, Erica will walk you through:what happens when you DON’T have these two steps implemented in your businesshow you can use them in both your creative business and your personal life to truly get everything you wanther personal story of how she doubled her photography studio business in 12 months so her husband could leave his full time job and join her (they run their photography studio as a wife + husband team!) How one creative got clear and left behind feelings of overwhelm and failure after a simple 5-minute exercise!Whether you’re already on your way to living the life you've always wanted, or you’re in a place where you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed or perhaps skeptical, then this episode is for you.  By the end of this episode, you’ll have the formula to build the business and life of your dreams. thesuccessfulcreatives.com