Recorded: Welcome to the ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait photographers to uniquely brand, profitably price, and confidently sell their best work. Allison has been doing just that for the last 15 years, and she’s proven that it’s possible to create unforgettable art and run a portrait business that supports your family and your dreams. All it takes is a little ReWork. Episodes will include interviews with experts from in and outside of the photo industry, mini-workshops, and behind-the-scenes secrets that Allison uses in her portrait studio every single day. She will challenge your thinking and inspire your confidence to create a profitable, sustainable portrait business you love through continually refining and reworking your business. Let’s do the ReWork.
Allison Tyler Jones: Hi friends, and welcome back to the ReWork. Well, this episode is wrapping up season four of the podcast, and we’ll be taking a break for the summer and then we’ll be back in the fall. I didn’t want to send you off for the summer without some great inspiration and insight to get you through. And today’s guest is Kathryn Langsford from Photos by Kathryn in Vancouver, Canada, one of our most popular guests and my good friend. And we are going to be talking today about getting out of your own way by overcoming fear and anxiety about your business because no matter how long you’ve been in business, we all have nagging fears and anxiety about that.
Allison Tyler Jones: And especially the last four years, what we’ve been through this crazy roller coaster ride, and it doesn’t look like things are settling down anytime soon, we need ways to manage our own personal anxieties and fears. But also what does that look like from a practical angle when you are in business and how do you overcome and put practical actions into place that can help you move your business forward even when you’re nervous, even when you’re anxious, even when you’re scared. Let’s do it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, it’s been a little bit of time since you have been with us, my dear friend. How are you?
Kathryn Langsford: I’m great. It’s so good to see you.
Allison Tyler Jones: You too, so much-
Kathryn Langsford: And hear you.
Allison Tyler Jones: So much fun to have. You look great. Nobody can see this, but she is wearing white and I am wearing black, so we’re like opposites today. It’s awesome.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah. Monochromatic twins.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yep. I love it. Okay, so you and I had a conversation, it’s probably been three weeks ago now, and as we were having the conversation, I thought, I wish I was recording this because we were talking about fear and anxiety and how we tend to get in our own way and talking specifically about our own fears and our own anxiety about our businesses, and it was just a really good conversation. So I kind of wanted to have the conversation again about that. Are you game for that?
Kathryn Langsford: Sounds great. Yeah, let’s talk about it. We talk about this kind of thing all the time.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yep. And so the caveat here is that we are not licensed psychologists in any way, shape or form. We are photographers.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: However, you’ve been in business almost 25 years, I’ve been in business almost 20 years. So that’s a lot of experience and a lot of time, so we’ve been through some stuff.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah. Business wise, personal wise, all of it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And I think one of the things that makes both of our businesses unique is that we support the family.
Kathryn Langsford: Yes, sole bread winner.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. So quitting is not an option. Not that we haven’t thought of it,
Kathryn Langsford: Not that we haven’t thought about walking away and throwing a match over our shoulder.
Allison Tyler Jones: Not that we have not thought about other career options, but that really hasn’t been an option too much for too long on the table. Would you say that’s fair?
Kathryn Langsford: Oh, for sure. There’s been a couple of times I’ve actually gone down the road of thinking what that would look like, but I mean, it’s never really been a serious consideration.
Allison Tyler Jones: And so when you’re in that frame of mind, because I know we have a wide variety of listeners, we have photographers who are new in their career, maybe it’s their second act and they have a spouse or a partner that has a different job, and so they don’t have to rely on it. But we also have quite a few listeners who are mature business owners themselves and might be looking for an exit strategy every other day or feeling like they’re just not feeling the love anymore or all the things that we’ve talked about. And so this is kind of an encouragement. This is our last episode for season four, and I want to send our listeners off with just inspiration and encouragement for those that want to continue.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, sounds great. We all need it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So let’s start with personal, because I think so many of us are solopreneurs, very small businesses, and so we are the business in many aspects. So personally when we are feeling fearful and anxious… You have had a lot of practice with us because as we know, Canada shut down way more during COVID. You had cancer with your husband. I mean, there was just a lot of things going on that was really hard during that time and you really leaned into self-care. So what are some of the practical practices that you found helpful for you during that time?
Kathryn Langsford: Pandemic aside, just during times where I had a lot of personal stuff going on, I actually really focused on making sure that I have lots of time to myself, which was difficult as a business person and also just my own personality type. I tend to fill up my day and try and schedule my… That’s how I feel productive, and that’s how I feel like I’m making the best use of my time-
Allison Tyler Jones: Worthwhile, valid, worthy of life on the planet.
Kathryn Langsford: Exactly. Enough. And so I found that there was a lot of value to freeing up more time for myself, and that actually helped me on the business side as well. I reinvented or reawakened areas of creativity that had just been squashed by being too busy, but staying on the personal side so I still make a conscious effort to not over schedule my time off. And to make sure that if I see a day filling up with appointments, that’s a red flag for me. Personally I need to leave lots of open times, so I’ll go for a walk or I’ll just stay home and do nothing. It’s been really hard for me to learn how to do that, but it really helps me. I’ll sleep in, even if it’s just an hour. I just do things that don’t require me being obligated to any person or task, and that helps me.
Kathryn Langsford: I also stay connected. I feel like it’s really a good thing for me to stay connected to people as opposed to isolating myself, which is something I tend to do. And so reaching out, going for coffee, going for walks, I do that really regularly. I get outside and I have a dog, so I walk my dog, but even before I had the dog, going for walks really helps me to clear my mind. Sometimes I’m listening to something in my AirPods, sometimes I’m not listening to anything. I’m just walking in silence. And I always feel better after that. No matter how I feel when I leave the house, I always feel better when I get out.
Allison Tyler Jones: Sometimes don’t even want to do it.
Kathryn Langsford: Oh yeah, for sure.
Allison Tyler Jones: Making yourself.
Kathryn Langsford: And part of the exercise, but part of it is just getting out of myself a little bit, getting out into the world. So those things really help me. And then there’s just the physical, basic needs, getting enough sleep.
Allison Tyler Jones: Huge.
Kathryn Langsford: Sounds obvious, but often I don’t do it. And so yeah, getting enough sleep, making sure that I do things to help myself sleep through the night, watching my caffeine, really prioritizing anything that’s going to help me sleep as well as eating properly and being mindful of what I’m putting into my body. All these things sound obvious, but when I fall down in those areas, I feel it. If my body is kind of struggling ’cause I haven’t had enough sleep, or I haven’t had enough protein or whatever, then my mind and the rest of me suffers as well. So this is coming from a place of like, I’ve been through grief, I’ve been through extreme stress, I’ve been through periods like that, and during those periods I just had to do these things for myself or I was not functioning well. So I’ve carried some of those habits into just regular life when things aren’t falling apart and in crisis mode, I still try to live that way because I find it really helps.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. And I find that there’s kind of the low grade anxiety or the fear, general fear, just the kind of maybe hums in the background for a lot of us. And then there’s crisis where something really hard is happening in your personal life or something like that. And I find that when I feel very fragile, that is a very uncomfortable feeling for me because I like to feel strong and I like to feel confident. But there are times when you just feel either broke and open maybe, or fragile. Something happened-
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, vulnerable.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, that’s a better word. I remember this book I read, and I can’t even remember where I read it now, but they were talking about how when you are in that state that you need to think of bunny slippers, like these soft, fluffy slippers. And that as a mental construct, kind of wrapping yourself up in something soft, just go easy on yourself, go easy on the self recrimination, and I should be a baller and I should be out there doing this, this, and this, but my whole private… I’m going through a divorce or somebody has just passed away or something really hard is happening. Maybe we could just ease up on the self-criticism for a hot minute and put some bunny slippers on and realize, this is hard. We still have to work. We still have to make money. Let’s just move forward but go easy a little bit.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah. And remembering that this is going to pass. Those really hard times don’t last forever, and I will be a baller again. I will be firing on all cylinders again, and right now I’m just not, and I’m going to be good to myself, for sure. Those are really good messages.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and you just touched on the next point, which is I find it helpful, and I think it’s one of the superpowers of being a little bit older, is that you have some historical data on things that you have survived. You and I have survived 100% of every hard thing that we’ve been through because we’re here. I’m having this conversation with you, we are still here. And sometimes you have to just stop and realize that, okay, there’s been some stuff. There’s been 2008, there’s been hard, and our businesses have been through a lot. And then personally, we’ve been through a lot, but we survived it. And so to be able to look back and go, okay, I remember when 2008 happened, I thought I was going to lose my business. I remember when they shut down the world for the pandemic, I thought we thought we were going to lose everything, and here we are. And so sometimes just having that reality is kind of a reset.
Kathryn Langsford: Remembering that the bottom has not fallen out so far. I mean, maybe that was a hard message to help me when I was really early in business because I didn’t have a lot of history to back that up. But now that, as you said, now that I’m coming up on 25 years, and even for the last five, 10 years, I’ve been able to remind myself the bottom has never fallen out so far, and it’s probably not going to this time either. So just taking that high level fear out of this situation, it helps me to think more clearly and have a more positive mindset.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, for me, when I started the business and also the last business I had, there does come a time where once I decide, okay, I’m doing this, this is now going to be the thing. This is going to be the business or whatever. There does come of this internal moment and I can kind of pinpoint specific times when I’ve thought this, where I just think, you know what? I don’t care what has to happen. I mean, I’m not going to do something illegal or dishonest or anything like that, but it’s like this is happening. I’m doing this. No matter what happens, I’m not going to just take this off the table and take my toys and go home because some hard thing happened. This is a non-negotiable, I’m doing this. And so sometimes I think when we haven’t fully committed, it’s easier to take it off the table and then that adds its own layer of anxiety ’cause you aren’t fully committed. Am I even making sense on that?
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah. Are you talking about at the beginning of a business?
Allison Tyler Jones: I don’t know. I just think even when things get hard where you just think, no, okay, I’ve chosen to do this. I mean, 25 years in, obviously you think, well, I’m probably not going to live to 150 and I’m probably not going to do this for the next 50 years. So at some point you have to start thinking, okay, well, what else would I do? But right now, we’re here right now, and you and I are both in it and we’re doing it. And so sometimes you have those thoughts of like, well, what would the exit strategy be? Or what would I do other than this? But then you’re like, okay, hold on. It’s 2024. I’m here right now and I have three sessions this week, or I don’t have three sessions this week and I need three sessions next week. So what am I going to do? No matter what, this is going to happen. You kind of just decide and move forward.
Kathryn Langsford: Mm-hmm.
Allison Tyler Jones: I don’t know.
Kathryn Langsford: I don’t know if I can go with that one.
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re like, I don’t know if I can-
Kathryn Langsford: Well, because for me, when I have a flash in my head of like, yeah, maybe I’ll just wrap it up, shut the doors and have a fire sale. That to me is an exhausting and extraordinarily depressing thought. I very rarely have let myself go there, so I’m not usually needing to reaffirm that I’m doing this. The sign is up-
Allison Tyler Jones: See, that’s good.
Kathryn Langsford: … and its staying up.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay, so prevention of don’t go there or if you are there, okay, we’re moving forward. See, everybody’s different. I learn from you every time. Okay, so assuming that we’re meditating, walking, sleeping, eating reasonably well, we’ve got kind of get the self-care piece, a few of those pieces under control. I think even just one of those things can help you so much. Let’s talk about practical business, things that you’re doing in the actual business action steps that our listeners can take when they’re feeling maybe a little bit nervous or anxious, or maybe they don’t have as much business as they would like or whatever.
Kathryn Langsford: I think number one is to remind ourselves that feelings are not facts. So my feeling that everything’s going down the drain, and this is the worst year I’ve ever had, and that I have so many less sessions than I did last year, and that’s a feeling I have, but it needs to be backed up with facts. And when I look at the facts, usually they’re not equal to the feelings. Meaning usually when I pull out a spreadsheet and look at really how many sessions do I have this year over last year, really what’s the revenue look like this year over last year, usually it’s not as bad as I think.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Usually it’s just February or some month is-
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, somehow-
Allison Tyler Jones: … historically slow, it’s every year is slow. Yeah.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah. And somehow I forget that every year. Every year, I forget that the phone doesn’t ring from December 31st until March 15th. So yeah. So first I need to clear that away so that I’m not operating on made up information that came from my feelings. And then I can sort of do some practical things like look through my leads or clear away some low-hanging fruit, order to make-
Allison Tyler Jones: Fruits like what? So what is low-hanging fruit in your business? I know what it is for me. So what some low-
Kathryn Langsford: Low hanging fruit is people who said, “Yeah, we’ll do that after Christmas,” or “Yeah, we’ll do that when the kids are off to school,” instead of going back-
Allison Tyler Jones: Incomplete orders.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, incomplete orders. Or leads that I didn’t follow up, or people who got halfway through a booking process and then something happened and we dropped it, things that weren’t completed. Or my annual people that come every summer, maybe reaching out to them and getting them on the books, just sort of drumming up some action. I’ll never expect to get a hundred percent out of those things, but even if I get 30%, 40%, it’s more than I have now.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And actually doing something, like just picking up the phone or texting that forward momentum is a gratitude walk.
Kathryn Langsford: Exactly. Moving forward.
Allison Tyler Jones: It just moves you forward. You’re like, okay, it’s not as bad as I thought. Okay, I know how to do this.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah. Things happen when we’re in motion. Yeah, for sure. And then I think another thing is if I’ve got really not much going on, I might look at something creative. I just recently did an artist project for a few different reasons. One of them was that I wanted to develop a new look, but there was other reasons too. I wanted to reawaken my creativity. I wanted to get some new people in here. I wanted to just have some action. I wanted to actually do some work with a new assistant too that I didn’t have anything booked with, and I needed to sort of get him working. So there was a few different purposes to that, and it just livened things up and gave me countless ideas because my wheels were turning. So even though I made those wheels turn myself, instead of business revenue generating wheels, if that makes sense, it really helped me to get moving again.
Kathryn Langsford: And now I have this flurry of activity that’s come out of that. So it’s doing something like that. I’ve done that a few times. I know you’ve done that. And then also just letting my mind have some space to think about what are those ideas that I had or those things that I put on the back burner when it was insane in the fall. The things I wanted to improve around here, were there things that I wanted to put into place that I just didn’t have time to think through? Looking at those things, I’ve got a thousand square foot deck out there that I never use because I’ve just been too busy to think about how to use. Maybe I need to go out there and walk around and think through the furniture and look at that kind of thing. So yeah, just things like that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and I think for us here in Arizona, we’re headed into what is typically the slow season. It’s July, everybody’s gone. It’s dead. It’s hotter than heck, it’s crazy, 115, 120 degrees. So we’re headed into maybe what would be your winter. And so this is now the time to get out ahead and think, okay, what are going to be all of our summer projects to clean up the studio and do all those things, move the business forward, clean up databases in preparation for promotions and different things like that. And so those are some of the things that you might be doing January, February. And we’re going to come up and do that now. But you don’t do it unless you kind of plan ahead for it, because then all of a sudden you just find yourself in a slow time and think, oh my gosh, what am I doing? And…
Kathryn Langsford: That happens too. I never plan well enough ahead, even though every year is similar. I am never ahead of that really. And so that can happen too, where I find myself like, oh, I was so busy last week and now I have nothing to do. And I can go to panic mode in my mind. But I think one thing I have learned is there is value to having open time and free time at work. And we’ve talked before. Sometimes when I have free time and it’s a slow time, I just go home. Sometimes I just let myself do that. I’m tired and I have stuff to do at home, and there’s nothing happening here, and I’m just going to go home. And I couldn’t do that 10 years ago. I just could not wrap my head around leaving the office on a workday.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right, that felt so indulgent or irresponsible.
Kathryn Langsford: It just felt like something horrible is going to happen if I’m not here X number of hours per week. And now I know that’s not true. I know that it’s making hay when the sun shines. There are times when it’s just crazy busy. And I just do all I can to take full advantage of that. And then when it’s quiet, I just let it be quiet. But that’s sort of a different approach.
Allison Tyler Jones: So you’ve been heading here, but you have made a huge life change, in that you have completely restructured how you work. So you’ve gone to working a shooting week, a selling week, and then a week off.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: And a production.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah. Well, it’s more like a week off once a month. And then the other weeks are a shooting week, a selling week sometimes that leads to the next week and then a week of planning, client communications, consultations-
Allison Tyler Jones: Admin.
Kathryn Langsford: Things like that, yeah. And then I take a week off and I mean, that’s been a long time to transition to that. I know we’ve talked about this before, but I started out of desperation having to reduce my work week because of things that were going on at home. And then I realized how much better it was for everyone if I was here a three-day block and at home for a four-day block. And then I’ve sort of fine-tuned how I spend my three days at work and how I spend my four days at home. And I feel like I’ve, for the first time in 25 years, achieved a pretty nice, dare I say, work-life balance.
Allison Tyler Jones: What even is that?
Kathryn Langsford: I know.
Allison Tyler Jones: Amazing.
Kathryn Langsford: But I still have to work on disciplining myself to not go back to old habits. As I mentioned earlier, over-scheduling myself on my time off. But in general, that schedule is perfect for me. And it was unthinkable before. I worked seven days a week for 20 years.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, yeah. Well, when we became friends, you were working seven days a week.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: For sure. Yeah, I remember.
Kathryn Langsford: So anyway, that is definitely a possibility and I think a possibility for anyone. But there are certain ways of handling your work schedule so that you don’t miss out on revenue. I’m not making less money. I’m just scheduling things creatively.
Allison Tyler Jones: Things differently.
Kathryn Langsford: I’m delegating a lot more than I was before. Things that I’m not-
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s interesting.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah. I mean, things that I am not needed for in most cases I don’t do.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right, you’re micromanaging.
Kathryn Langsford: But I’m still learning there. I’m still learning. I’m still having to remind myself, I don’t have to be doing this. I can pass this off so that I can do X task.
Allison Tyler Jones: So going back to my earlier point that was not landing with you and hopefully it landed with our listeners better than it landed with you. Is that idea of no matter what, right? The idea of no matter what, this has to happen. So there are certain givens like no matter what, I’m going to make this business go and there’s not an option. I can’t just quit because we got to feed our family. And so for you, you came up against this, okay, I have a kid that’s in crisis, for example, I have to be home more. I cannot be working seven days a week because I have kids that need me and this is what needs to happen.
Allison Tyler Jones: And you thought the world was going to come to and end, that there was no way that was going to be able to happen. And we realized that actually we are the ones that are in the way of all of that. We’re telling ourselves these stories that we have to retouch every picture. We have to touch everything. We have to do it all because if we don’t, it won’t be done right. Because we know everything and we’re the only ones that know how to do it, right?
Kathryn Langsford: Absolutely. And that’s been a path to figure that out because there are some things that I do have to do, that I tried letting go of and I can’t, like installation. I tried just leaving the installation up to the install team and I realized, no, you know what? I shouldn’t really be there. After a few unfortunate things happened.
Allison Tyler Jones: After a series of unfortunate events.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah. It was a series of unfortunate events. But there are other things that I’ve forced myself to let go of that I’m never going to look back on. I mean, it’s like why was I spending so much time doing that? And then the other thing is I was talking about how I’d split my work week into three days a week, and then I’d split up my month into certain weeks for things. That piece of it is another area that I thought, I can’t do this. I can’t take off a week a month. It’s ridiculous. I can’t. And there’s been some bumps along the way.
Kathryn Langsford: If I don’t schedule myself properly, then I can really mess things up because I’m off for a week and I leave these tasks undone for a week, and then when I come back, they get dropped. I need to be organized and I need to work a bit differently. But it’s totally possible. So far, there hasn’t been anything that would indicate that I shouldn’t be doing this. So I can have sanity and be with my family for what they need and run a business. I mean, so far so good.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, knock on wood.
Kathryn Langsford: But like you said, it’s just allowing ourselves to be flexible in what we think is possible. I did have a lot of things I told myself about how hard I had to work, how many days I had to be here. A successful business person doesn’t take weekends off. I mean, that’s just proof that you’re not working hard enough if you’re off weekend. This is how-
Allison Tyler Jones: I always joke with you about how you’re the most American Canadian I know. Most Canadians, they’re not you.
Kathryn Langsford: Well, they do like their weekends.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and yeah, they’re hockey and it’s very-
Kathryn Langsford: They do like their outdoor time.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, totally. So I feel like you definitely have more of that US not work ethic, but I think work ethic is a great thing, and I think Canadians have that, but you definitely have that more that the US overwork.
Kathryn Langsford: I think it’s because I grew up more in the Toronto area, a bit more east.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Kathryn Langsford: We moved faster.
Allison Tyler Jones: Drivers, ambitious. Yeah, no, totally.
Kathryn Langsford: Exactly.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. And so then I think, okay, well, looking back, we realized that we’ve been telling ourselves stories at different phases in our career. And so then I think, okay, well what story am I telling myself now? How am I in my own way now? What fears am I dealing with now? And right now, there are the fears of things that are completely out of our control. We can’t control who is going to be the next President of the United States. We can’t control whether some country invades another country. Right now, it’s like all the world leaders seem like they’re running around with a gas can in one hand and a set of matches in the other. Can everybody just calm down? We’re trying to run a business here. But we can’t control that. We have no control over the economy at large. We just only can control our own little piece of the world.
Kathryn Langsford: Ourselves, our responses to things, how we react to things.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And sometimes that feels very… You feel very vulnerable or fragile, like, okay, what’s going to happen? But circling back to that, okay, we’ve survived everything that we’ve been through. It’s going to be okay. Today, right now it’s okay, so let’s move forward. What are we going to do today?
Kathryn Langsford: In some ways, it’s freeing to know I can’t do anything about the state of the economy. I can’t. I can take whatever action is in front of me to make sure that my business is as well positioned as it can be, and I can react with as little fear and panic as possible. That’s not good for me. But I can’t change what’s going to happen financially. To me, that’s freeing to know that’s not my job.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And this week I had a couple of experiences that really just… And we all have these experiences, but I soaked it in more than I normally, I think allow myself to do. Where we had a lovely couple come in, new clients, we’d done a multi-gen session with her parents and her kids and her family, and they were very emotional during the session. There’s nobody’s sick, but the parents are just getting older. And you could tell that she was very motivated to do this because her parents are getting older. She recognizes that. So then when we looked at the images during their sales appointment, they were just incredibly tearful. And I was very tearful too, because it was just like there were a few portraits that I captured that I wish I had of my parents before I lost them. And so I was just saying to her, “I’m so glad that you did this now. You’re so smart.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Nobody’s sick. Nobody looks sick, everybody just looks good. And I just realized no matter what happens in this world, time will not stand still. We are going to lose people. Babies are going to turn into toddlers. Toddlers are going to turn into teenagers. Time is not going to stand still, and it’s not going to wait for a war. It’s not going to wait for a pandemic. It’s not going to wait for anything. It’s just going to move on. And that what we do is so important and so valuable, and it’s just so easy to lose sight of that when we’re in our own fear about what might or might not be happening in the world around us, speaking for myself.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, for sure. No, fear kills creativity. Fear kills so many parts of what we need to have a successful, thriving business. For sure. Fear is not good.
Allison Tyler Jones: No, because you’ll just make it true. And because I’ve done it so many times, and-
Kathryn Langsford: It’ll make you skew what’s actually happening. Like I said, the facts versus feelings. If I’m living in fear, I miss the facts. And the facts may be a whole different story than what my mind is telling me based on fear.
Allison Tyler Jones: And I just have to tell you as my friend, and you’ve been a huge fact-checker for me. And I think that’s another action that our listeners can take, is that have a friend in the business in another country or another town that has maybe a similar type business and a similar view that you can fact check. Because I can call you and be like, “It’s never going to be okay ever again.” And you can say, “Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on.” And then we do that for each other.
Kathryn Langsford: Yep. Yeah, you definitely do that for me too. And I want to second that how important it is to have a friend in the business. It’s one thing to have some people that we kind of know online. It’s one thing to have some people that we are complimentary toward each other about the work that we see one another do. It’s a whole other thing to have a business BFF that you talk to about the good, the bad, and the ugly, and really, really talk. I mean, you and I really talk about all of it. About lots of fear talk, lots of pep talks, lots of… We talk about our personal stuff too. But even if we didn’t, I mean, the stuff we cover that we’ve talked about in our own businesses, you can see things about my business that I can’t and vice versa.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, for sure.
Kathryn Langsford: You can tell me things about my business that I would not come up with on my own. You can’t see the forest for the trees, so to speak. I would encourage everyone to pursue that.
Allison Tyler Jones: One of my mentors, Carol Anders, said to me one time, “You can’t see the label from inside the bottle.” And I think that’s so true. Sometimes we get so down on ourselves, we get in a creative rut or whatever, and you need somebody from the outside to build you up a little bit and say it’s going to be okay. And so that’s great to receive that. But then in doing that for somebody else, you actually do it for yourself. If you’ve been down or having a hard time, and as I’m talking to you and saying, “No, but you could try this and I see this,” then I realize, oh, wait, but I could try that too. And it’s such a virtuous cycle to be able to build somebody up, build you up. And then when you’re the one that’s receiving that, I think it’s harder to receive it in many ways because you feel like, I don’t want to be the one that’s down. I don’t want to be the one that… But you need-
Kathryn Langsford: Oh, for sure.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Kathryn Langsford: Are you kidding? I’m always feeling like I’m that person in our conversation.
Allison Tyler Jones: No, no. Absolutely not. No, actually, I think that’s another thing too, is that you have to be careful because you can just turn into a nanny or where somebody just sucks you. It has to be reciprocal. And that I feel like ours has been so reciprocal. I mean, it’s been so mutually beneficial. And yeah, I think that’s just an amazing… I appreciate you so much. I hope you know that.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, you too. I couldn’t be doing any of this without you. You helped me through every step of what I’m… I’m sitting in this studio right now. I remember all the talks we had about the space and how it’s going to work and just all the things I was scared about. You’ve been through all of that with me, even though we’ve only physically been together a handful of times.
Allison Tyler Jones: I know. Which is so weird.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah. It’s all on the phone or on Zoom.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. So reaching out, having that community, and it doesn’t need to be 10 people. It can be one person, it can be a couple of people. We’ve had phases of that too, where we’ve been kind of in a little bit of a mastermind group. And then… So whatever works, don’t try to go it alone. But I would say, again, the caveat to that would be careful, because you can be around people that take you down, especially on Facebook or some of the groups that are-
Kathryn Langsford: Oh, sure.
Allison Tyler Jones: Where if you’re in a space, a room, whether it’s virtual or in reality where everybody is just complaining and down, that’s probably not where you want to be.
Kathryn Langsford: Oh, yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: You want to be where somebody’s solving problems and moving forward and making… Again, that no matter what, we’re going to make this happen. Because the frame of where we’re starting from is that I can do this. It can be done.
Kathryn Langsford: For sure. For sure. A hundred percent. If it’s anything that’s causing you worry or stress or upset, that’s not the right business relationship. It’s not your business BFF.
Allison Tyler Jones: I still have my mug that you sent me, the Unicorn Success Club. That is actually up on my little… It’s right up there with pencils in it, and I love it. Okay. Well, I think that is some great takeaway. So just to recap on that, when you’re feeling fearful, when you’re feeling anxious to look at your body, yourself first, are you taking care of yourself? Are you getting enough sleep? Are you eating? Maybe just go for a walk. If it’s something that’s catastrophic and really big and you’re incredibly fragile and vulnerable, think bunny slippers. Be kind to yourself. Be soft with yourself. And then practical application to the business side is artist project, being inspired creatively.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, nourish your creativity. Let yourself have open space to think about things and pick up projects that got dropped.
Allison Tyler Jones: Reality check of your data.
Kathryn Langsford: Reach for the low hanging fruit.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, the reality check for your data. Make sure that you’re not just telling yourself a story. Look back and see, are you really down? Is it really as dire as you think it is? And then if you need to wrestle up some cash, which don’t we all?
Kathryn Langsford: I was going to say that. We didn’t even mention that. Sometimes you need to move some money around, whatever that looks like. I’ve lent my business money many times over the years, and when times are good, I take it back. I mean, that needs to happen sometimes.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yep. And because-
Kathryn Langsford: Not a straight path.
Allison Tyler Jones: No.
Kathryn Langsford: It’s a rollercoaster.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, right. It’s very true. And I think, what was the other thing that we just said? Okay, artist projects, being inspired creatively. Look at the historical data. Oh, the low hanging fruit. I did want to kind of end with that a little bit, but just that there are so many things that when we’re busy, busy, busy, they just kind of slip. When you’re really busy and a lot is coming in, there’s a lot of little pebbles that are falling off while you’re holding onto these bigger boulders. And then when it’s slower times, you can go back and find those little pebbles and build them into bigger boulders. But if you don’t ever have a way to capture that, like a lead capture system, CRM, or for us, it’s like a monday.com board where we have all of our leads and okay, this is how we’ve talked to them.
Allison Tyler Jones: And we know, we’re keeping track of that. So that right now, Chelsea, our client coordinator is just… She’s spending almost all of her days on the phone, texting, emailing, “Hey, you ordered the big one before Christmas, but you said you wanted to come back and get the smaller ones in February. Do you want us to put that into production? We can do that right now.” Just that kind of follow up, follow up, follow up. And again, like you said, it’s maybe 10%, you’re going to get something out of that, but you’re moving everything forward and just that momentum, it’s just building a stronger foundation rather than this all or nothing, feast or famine thing.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It’s really frequent that when I’m dealing with a big job, they’re like, “Oh, maybe next summer when my sister’s kids are around, I’d love to do something then.” Just sort of things that are mentioned in passing, and you either can’t do anything about it at the time because they’re talking about the future or you’re just too busy. You have a big project with them. And that’s something to think about later. Picking up those things when things are slow and it doesn’t always work. Sometimes they forgot about it or they’re not interested anymore, but sometimes they are, and that can really help.
Allison Tyler Jones: And very often they will say, “Oh my gosh, thank you so much.” So perfect example of that recently is I had a client who has four standard poodles, and they’re a rotating cast of characters because some have died and gotten old. So she’s had this one that is getting old, and we had documented him. And so she texted me a couple of weeks ago in the night he finally earned his wings and the sad crying, and I was like, “Oh, I’m so sorry. It’s so hard”. And we were talking about how much we love this dog. And then she says, “Text me a picture of the new puppy.”
Allison Tyler Jones: And I said, “Oh, we need to photograph him. He’s so cute.” She’s like, “Yeah, while he still has his puppy coat, right?” So this was two years, two weeks ago, and I woke up in the night and I’m like, oh my gosh, that puppy coat is going to go. Holy crap. I need to call her. So I just quickly texted her like, “Hey, we got to get in. When’s the puppy coat fading? What’s the timeline on that?” So I could have just let that go, and she would’ve probably been fine, but she was like, “Thank you so much for remembering. I’ve been so busy. I really do want to get that.”
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: So I’m not bugging her.
Kathryn Langsford: No.
Allison Tyler Jones: I’m doing what she wants. And she can always tell me no.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, exactly.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I decided I don’t care about the puppy coat.
Kathryn Langsford: Checking back with someone is not bothering them. I mean, if they’re silent or they don’t get back, then maybe I leave it there. But yeah, checking back in about something, I don’t hesitate to do that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, I love that. So, well, I think that’s some good things to take away into the summer. If summer’s a slow time for you, start making your list of what you’re going to clean up, either in your physical environment or your virtual environment, what you can move forward, getting ready for the fall, fourth quarter’s typically busier in our business. And then if summer is your busy season, then how are you getting geared up for that and just getting out of your own way. I think you’ve provided us with so many good ideas. I really appreciate you being here.
Kathryn Langsford: I love it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Anything you want to send everybody off with?
Kathryn Langsford: Just remember to put facts before feelings.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Kathryn Langsford: Fact check the feels.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s always been a good one for us. Yeah, fact check with data. Fact check with your business BFF. Yeah, and you’re definitely that for me.
Kathryn Langsford: You too, sister.
Allison Tyler Jones: All right. Thank you.
Kathryn Langsford: Bye.
Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison at dotherework.com and on Instagram @do.the.rework.
