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. We’ve all heard the B word. Boundaries. How many of you heard it, especially if you’re parents of millennial children? That everybody’s all about setting their boundaries and making sure that they are letting everybody know what the boundaries are, almost to the point where it’s become so trendy we tune out to that idea. But if you want to get out of your own way, and if you want to get what you really want out of your portrait business, you have to be good at setting boundaries.
Allison Tyler Jones: Our guest today is Čedna Todorovic. She is an immigrant to Canada and has spent the last two years building her portrait business. And my goodness, she has hit the ground running and is really working hard to build this business. But she’s found that it’s been very difficult for her to set boundaries. She came from a history in the corporate world and just dove right into the portrait business and didn’t really think a lot about what it was that she wanted, how she wanted the business to run. She was just thinking, how can I make this the most amazing thing for my clients and basically give them everything that they want?
Allison Tyler Jones: Sound familiar? I think we all start with that motivation, and then we realize, wait a minute, is this business working to support me and my family, or am I working to support the business? Čedna is an achiever. She’s an ambitious portrait photographer. She wants to do well, but she’s really hard on herself. So you’ll see that during this interview, how motivated and ambitious she is, but what she’s learned about setting boundaries and how that has helped her more quickly build a business that she wants rather than being run by her business.
Allison Tyler Jones: So I think you’ll find a little bit of yourself in this conversation today, and our goal is to give you your own clarity and purpose for setting your own boundaries in your business. Let’s do it.
All right. Well, today in The Rework podcast studio, I am so pleased to welcome Čedna Todorovic from Canada, Calgary. You’re Western Canada?
Čedna Todorovic: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes. So, is that Alberta?
Čedna Todorovic: Yeah, Alberta. Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. Well, welcome, Čedna. I’m so happy that you’re here and so appreciative of your time.
Čedna Todorovic: Thank you. I appreciate being invited and I’m really excited to chat with you.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So Čedna, you came into my world in 2024. You were part of the Art of Selling Art group that came through and just had the best questions. Even before you signed up for the course, you sent me a big email with just questions, questions, questions. And I love a girl that has, not just questions, but good questions.
Allison Tyler Jones: And so I noticed right off the bat that you were asking all the right questions. So that’s why I wanted to have you on, because I just feel like every time we have a live Q&A or anytime that I’m in a group with you, you are always asking, going right to the heart of what makes a better business. And so what I would love for you to do is maybe tell our listeners that don’t know who you are, tell us about your business, how long you’ve been doing it, what you specialize in, all of that.
Čedna Todorovic: Sounds good. So yeah, I’m based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I immigrated here in the mid-nineties from Eastern Europe, from Yugoslavia. I was raised by a single mother, and life was really hard, right? My upbringing and life was very challenging. I had my very first corporate job when I was 18 years old, because that was a survival mechanism, right? You need to live somewhere, you need to have food. Education was a luxury. I couldn’t afford it, so I got a job. Then I spent 20 years building my career in that corporate space.
Čedna Todorovic: I fell in love with photography during travels with my husband, so well over 17 years ago. And then I just set up a part-time wedding photography business on weekends. So I had this full-time job Monday to Friday, and I ran this photography business on weekends because I just wanted to, that was the creative expression or the creative outlet, right? But I didn’t run it as a business, right? It was kind of like this glorified, super expensive, ridiculous hobby, essentially.
Allison Tyler Jones: At least you could admit that.
Čedna Todorovic: Yeah. And then in 2019, a series of events landed me on disability from my corporate job, and I spent three years healing myself and asking the hard questions about what I wanted out of life. And what I discovered was I was really starving for meaningful contribution. I was starving for growth and for learning, and I was starving for an opportunity to use my skills and all these ideas and passions that I had that just were not being utilized in that last stretch or that pocket, wherever I ended up in that career at that time.
Čedna Todorovic: And I realized that I hadn’t really been intentional about anything in my life up to that point. So 40 years, like I said, being an immigrant to a new country, just going through the motions of surviving, if you will, and I never once stopped to ask myself what I love or don’t like, who I am, what I enjoy doing, what my vision for my life was, none of that. Didn’t enter my mind anywhere. And so ultimately, I decided to walk away from that chapter of my life, and I opened up my portrait studio mid-November of 2022. So this November was just barely my second full-time.
Allison Tyler Jones: Amazing.
Čedna Todorovic: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Amazing. What are you specializing in? What are you shooting mainly now?
Čedna Todorovic: Mostly I started off with individual portraits. So women portraiture was really the first thing that I did in my first year of business, because that was the closest thing to me in my journey. A lot of self-worth building and self-belief building. And this idea, like I had to rebuild myself from scratch. When I left that world of the 40 years or the 20-year career, I honestly had no idea who I was. I didn’t know what I was good at, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. They really tore me down to a place where I just felt like I had nothing to offer the world.
Čedna Todorovic: So I could identify with women that were in that similar bracket or similar experience, and that’s what I photographed. But before that, really my true genuine passion is photographing children, which was really interesting because that got pushed off to the background because I simply did not know how to market that or build that as part of an offering, because it just felt like nobody would ever just pay to have their children photographed. You know? It was either a family or it was children.
Čedna Todorovic: Now, I had photographed families, but outdoors in more of a documentary context. And I really loved the documentary aspect of family photography. So when I thought about bringing that into the studio, again, I felt really stuck because I felt like I would get bored, like, well, so what do I do now? I don’t have the environment. I don’t have light conditions. I don’t have all this exciting, unpredictable variables, and now I’m just going to sit them in front of a wall, like, well, what am I going to do with them? Right? So then I didn’t truly really market that aspect either. So most of it was individual portraits. It was women, it was men, and it was branding for businesses.
Allison Tyler Jones: And what you shared in our community is that you are a hustler, girl. You do not let the grass grow under your feet. So you not only started a business in November of 2022, but how many networking events?
Čedna Todorovic: I think 47.
Allison Tyler Jones: Out of control, just on it a lot. Yeah, it is so hard. But you still were doing it and then just learning all the things and implementing all the things. And so where do you feel like you’re at now? We’re recording this in December of 2024, probably will air in for the first part of 2025. What’s a little moment of, where are you at in 2024, two years later?
Čedna Todorovic: So you know what? Where I’m at I think is I’m starting to value the importance of clarity. I’m not going to cry. I think I’m a person that gets easily overwhelmed and I have unreasonably unrealistic and high expectations of myself. I think I’ve always been that way. Maybe it’s going back to that survival mechanism of being an immigrant, but I think I just, it’s so easy to get lost in the noise.
Čedna Todorovic: So if you had asked me if you could have one wish for your business what would it be, I say that’s always evolving, right? So in my first year, if you asked me that, I would have told you teach me how to sell. Teach me how to believe in myself, right? If you asked me that earlier this year, I would have told you, teach me how to scale my business and not make it this unsustainable monster where I need to employ 15 people and have a $10,000 a month lease somewhere, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Čedna Todorovic: And this towards the end of this year, I think it’s calming down to more of a, how do you just gain clarity in terms of what you should be doing, what you shouldn’t be doing, what you want to be doing, who you want to be doing it with and for, and boundaries. I am terrible at boundaries. I suck at boundaries. I have allowed people to do anything and everything to me these last two years. And I’ve chalked it always up to just, this is good service, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Čedna Todorovic: This is good service because I could not fathom the idea of putting certain restrictions in place out of fear that people would think that I was ridiculous or they wouldn’t like me, or they wouldn’t come back to me or whatever it was, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Čedna Todorovic: So I think, yeah. Now the one wish would just be to continue to build on clarity of purpose and clarity of services that I offer. Clarity of products. I hope that makes sense.
Allison Tyler Jones: No, it makes complete sense. One of the first things that I noticed about you was truly how hard you are on yourself. I recognize that in you, because I am very similar and have not a similar background at all. Native to the United States, none of the struggles that you’ve gone through, but very much that if I am not whipping myself constantly, I’m not trying. If my head is not in the plow all the time, and I’m not doing every single thing, then I’m a loser or I’m a slacker or whatever.
Allison Tyler Jones: And so, I saw that in you and how hard you are on yourself. And you’re like, “I’ve been in business. I need to do this, and I need to do this, and I need to scale, and I need to do all of these things.” And I’m like, “How long have you been in business?” And you’re like, “Two years.” And I’m like, “Oh, girl.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Here, you already have a business. You have a reputation. You’re doing well. You’re doing beautiful work. And I can’t believe how what it is that you’ve already done, and you’re so new still in your business, and yet what you have accomplished. And so, I just want to stop for a minute and just tell you… Well, I’m not going to stop because we’re still recording this, but I just want to take a minute to tell you how much I admire that and see that in you and saw that from the beginning, that you are hard on yourself, but also, it’s made you what you are.
Allison Tyler Jones: So these experiences of a single mom, of an immigration, of having to… I’m sure you knew English in Yugoslavia, but to go to a completely new country, it’s different English.
Čedna Todorovic: I didn’t know any English actually. So I was, came into grade seven and I could not even speak basic conversation.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh my gosh, so hard. But what that experience taught you is (A) you take nothing for granted. (B) you get in, you work hard, you do what you got to do to make it happen, right? And so those are things that, I think, sometimes when we get in business and maybe have a little bit of success, we start feeling like, well, maybe it’s a fluke and it’s going to go away. And if I don’t just continually kill myself, then somehow it’s going to be taken away.
Allison Tyler Jones: But what I want to say to you is that that is foundation to who you are. You will never not be a hard worker, and that’s created this foundation for you that will sustain you for your life. And so if that gives you any amount of calm and peace and get off your own back a little bit, I just want you to hear that because that’s what I finally had to realize.
Allison Tyler Jones: Like, okay, it’s not a fluke. It’s not going to be taken away tomorrow. I’ve worked super hard to build relationships with clients that love me and I love them. And that’s not going to go away overnight because it’s not built on a fluke. It’s not built on a trick. It’s built on hard work, perseverance over a period of time.
Čedna Todorovic: Thank you. I appreciate that. I mean, that means a lot. I think that perspective does get lost. And like you said, there is that fear. That, oh, maybe just something happened and this was just a doozy these last two years.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, right. Well, and when you have to move countries, I’m sure you’ve had experiences that so many people listening to this will never know in their life. And there are things that you just don’t take for granted.
Čedna Todorovic: That is very true.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. And so that’s part of your story. It’s also part of what you can give to these women, just like your experience in the corporate world. I just think it’s so important for all of us to realize that we each have such a unique story. That is what we bring, that’s part of our expertise and what we bring to our clientele. It’s something that can’t be replicated by anybody else.
Čedna Todorovic: No, it cannot. And I think that’s an important point you bring up, too, because I think there was a lot of fear initially. You compare yourself to others and you say, I’m not doing this, or I should be doing that. And it really took a long time for me to really believe in that you can replicate processes, you can replicate pricing, you can copy people’s lighting, do whatever, but you cannot actually replicate that authentic thread that runs through who you are and how you engage with people and what your relationship with them is like, and what you bring to the table.
Allison Tyler Jones: For sure. And even how you’re telling their story. The concepts in your mind are such a reference to your own experience and how you’ve lived in the world, and just the things that you love and how you see them. And it’s really special. So I definitely see that in you, and it’s very compelling.
Allison Tyler Jones: A mentor of mine once told me many years ago when I was in this mode of, “Oh, I don’t know what I’m doing.” And she’s like, “You can’t see the label from inside the bottle.” And so sometimes you need somebody outside of you to say, “Hey, girl. You got it, you got this.”
Čedna Todorovic: Thank you.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. So let’s talk about, one of the things that you just mentioned that I think is so huge, so important is the idea of boundaries. That when we are in this mode of doing everything for everyone and just letting the inmates run the asylum, so to speak. What was your experience about not setting boundaries and how are you doing better with that?
Čedna Todorovic: Oh, God. Well, I think obviously your course was one of the big eye-opening things. I think philosophically speaking, I always knew that in the back of your head. You’re always told you must have boundaries in your business and you must run your business the way that you see best fit. But I think the challenge is we often don’t know what the best thing is, right? And we think that we’re the outlier, or maybe we’re being unreasonable, or maybe, like I said, there’s all those fears, right?
Čedna Todorovic: So for me, the boundary issue is a combination of cultural norms, right? I literally grew up in a society where you traded potatoes. Your dentist fixed your teeth and your grandparents took a bag of potatoes and a turkey to them, right? And it makes me sound like a dinosaur, but that really was like 37 years ago. That’s what it was, right? So your upbringing, your expectations we place on ourselves and all this noise outside, I think all those things are a factor that plays into that.
Čedna Todorovic: And I think I always try. Every time I would try to instill a boundary, it was almost like I was attracting people that were pushing them. It was really weird. I would try to instill a boundary, somebody would show up, try to push it, and it wouldn’t take very long. They would just push it once and it’d be like, okay, that comes down now, right?
Čedna Todorovic: I’ve had everything from… So my studio is home-based, I have a converted garage as my studio right behind my main residence. So I think, me being me, sometimes I am so honest and so open with my clients the way that I would relate to my friends, that sometimes that business relationship gets affected. And we’re buddies, right? So I would be sitting here waiting for a client to come for a reveal and order session, and I’m sitting here for an hour and a half and they’re nowhere to be found.
Čedna Todorovic: And then I find out that, oops, they just lost track of time because an out of city friend was visiting and they got held up at coffee, right? And I would continue to sit here for the next two hours until they made their way to me. Things like that. And there were many, many things. People that would bully me into giving them digital negatives, even though they bought severely discounted session and had a conversation. And like you said in your course, it doesn’t matter what you do, things are always going to be your fault at the end of the day, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Čedna Todorovic: So if you’re going to put boundaries and if things are always going to be your fault, regardless, you might as well then put a fence around it that at least gives you some kind of framework, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And one of the things that you just said that I think is so… I had this little aha moment when you were speaking, when you said everybody tells you, “Set the boundaries, run the business the way that you see fit.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, how many of us see fit is survive, right? Is okay, we got to survive. We got to keep these clients happy, and we got to keep the lights on and we got to keep the money coming in. We got to survive. So that’s our business plan is survive.
Allison Tyler Jones: And when you’re in that clenching fear, maybe could be the base of it, feeling like you’re not going to survive, you kind of do feel like you have to do whatever it takes to keep that person happy. Because if there’s a frowny face happening or they’re pushing back, just what you said, then we feel like, okay, we’re going to lose them so we can’t have any boundaries. We’ve just got to roll over and say, okay, I’ll do whatever you want. But that’s actually not the case. And you’ve discovered that.
Čedna Todorovic: Yeah, absolutely. Because I think what I’m finding is that it just makes me sick and unsure. And I’m a one man show right now. I have an assistant that assists me on bigger shoots, but I do everything myself. So what me not having boundaries, what that means is that I am here from 7:00 AM until midnight. I am here when my kids go to bed. I’m here on Saturday, I’m here on Sunday, I’m here on holidays.
Čedna Todorovic: And I don’t want to work that way. I don’t think it’s productive. It does not give me the right energy that I want to have to bring the best energy towards my clients, right? Because if I’m worn out and I’m miserable, I’m going to basically portray that and that’s the energy that I’m going to give them, and that’s not what I want.
Allison Tyler Jones: For sure.
Čedna Todorovic: So I think it’s one of those things that, again, you need to take care of yourself and sort of like my passion and my gratitude, you need to stay on top in order for me to continue to do what I do. If that’s not there, then well, what’s the point of running this business really?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And passion and gratitude is, I think, instilled by working with the very best kind of clients. Like the clients that don’t push you, the clients that actually do show up on time, the clients who are like, we love Čedna and she’s an amazing artist, and we value her time, we value her talent, we show up, we do what she says when she says it, and we follow her rules.
Allison Tyler Jones: And so what happens when we then spoil those clients and build our business around those clients is that the other ones, it crowds, the other ones out. When we do it the opposite way, I got to survive. Okay, it’s been an hour and a half and you’re not showing up. So rather than a quick text of, “Hey, it looks like you might have lost track of time. We’ll just reschedule. My next available is,” blah, blah, blah. “I’m not going to sit there and wait for you.”
Allison Tyler Jones: I mean, you wouldn’t say that, but you know what I mean. When the opposite is happening and somebody’s pushing you and you’re folding, you’re basically rewarding all the people that roll over you.
Čedna Todorovic: Yeah. And you’re exactly right. You’re exactly right. Because there is a pattern, and the pattern is that the worst clients were the ones that pushed my boundaries or did not respect the process, or did not respect something about the way that I do things. And they would kind of apologize, like, “Oh, I’m not really usually this way.”
Čedna Todorovic: And you’re like, yeah, okay. You’re smiling. But the best ones, if I do think back, the best ones are the ones that don’t have those problems. And if there is an anomaly, let’s say you’ve worked with somebody three times, and now they’re asking for something where you’re like, “Ah, that’s kind of out of character, I will roll over in that case.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Čedna Todorovic: Because they feel that it’s worth it for them. It’s just one off. But you’re absolutely right. Everybody that I ever got in, like I only tried a mini deal once in May of this year and I will do it again. And that I’m happy that it actually took only one person and a really big slap in the face where I put that thing down and I said, I’m never doing this again. And it’s again, because I was trying to mimic what others were doing. Like do a mini session because other-
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Čedna Todorovic: photographers had success with it, right? Even though I knew in my core that’s not how I work and that I cannot connect with people and I cannot have that relationship that’s important to me, and I cannot deliver the service that I want to deliver. I knew that. But it was like, well, if everybody else can do it, you can do it too. And it blew up in my face.
Allison Tyler Jones: And the fact that you can recognize that also when it happens, and course correct quickly rather than like, okay, well everybody’s still doing it, so I should just keep doing it. Good for you.
Čedna Todorovic: One and done.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, one and done. I love that. I love that. Well, and I think setting the boundary is just… And you hear about that so much, but in business it’s essential. It’s really just setting what your rules are, what your rules of engagement. This is how we work, this is the process, this is the way that it serves my best clients.
Allison Tyler Jones: So like you say, those people that come back again and again, who are amazing and great, that whole process is made to facilitate those clients. And it’s just almost immediately apparent when somebody comes in and that’s not a fit. And they’re wanting to run that freight train through your whole process and do it their way. It’s better to just let them go than to try.
Allison Tyler Jones: And especially when you’re the only one. Your time is so precious because you are the only one. You’re doing everything. So you have to be super careful who you let in because that’s going to influence the bookkeeper, it influences the client coordinator, it influences the retoucher, influences the photographer, because you’re all of those people.
Čedna Todorovic: Yeah. And it’s absolutely true. And I think I’m learning that. I’m learning that slowly just in this fourth quarter of this year. Because again, coming from my cultural background and the way that we were taught things, it was like, some money is better than no money, right?
Čedna Todorovic: So some money is better than no money. You’re approaching everything as though I will kill myself to make this work. But then I realized, well, no, actually. I would rather be doing nothing and make no money than killing myself and making no money, right? Because it doesn’t make sense. But I think beyond money, because I’m really not driven financially. I started this business, like I said, I wanted contribution, I wanted artistic expression. I wanted to-
Allison Tyler Jones: Meaning.
Čedna Todorovic: …contribution and meaning. And after COVID, that personal connection is really important to me. That’s the culture that I come from. But what I am driven by is valuable, meaningful connections. And if I’m allowing somebody in that’s draining my energy, that’s not the right fit, that doesn’t value what I do, that doesn’t give a crap about why I do things the way they do or the process or any of that, I’m not serving them, I’m not serving myself.
Čedna Todorovic: What’s the point? Right? So I would rather say no. And that I think that’s a very severe concept for me that you can say no to people that are interested in working with you or firing your previous clients. I’m still working on wrapping my head around that, but I do see the importance of it now because I have been burnt a couple of times.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, it is severe. And I think the idea of firing somebody, I don’t even think it’s necessary. You don’t have to fire anybody, you just hold your boundaries and they fire themselves. You know what I mean? And then they’re not even mad because then it’s just like, “Oh, I actually don’t want wall art for my walls. I want just a bunch of digital files and Čedna’s not going to do that so I’m going to go to somebody else.”
Čedna Todorovic: And that’s fine. But I want to go back to that ‘some money is better than no money,’ because oh my goodness, that rings so true for how I was raised too with my dad. Just some money is better than no money. But when you realize that sometimes that some money actually figures to negative money.
Čedna Todorovic: Yeah. Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: So you think it’s this little bit, I’ll get this little bit, but it’s actually somebody that you’re redoing it. They have all of these restrictions or all of these changes. And before you know it, you’re actually losing money on it.
Čedna Todorovic: And they’re still not happy. You lost money. You lost-
Allison Tyler Jones: You lost money, and they’re still mad and talking bad about you.
Čedna Todorovic: … Yeah. And they’re still mad, and you’re just like, well, it’s a lose-lose, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. So when you find yourself thinking that, very often it’s not some money, it’s negative money. You’re going to lose money on this.
Čedna Todorovic: Absolutely. Absolutely. You’re absolutely right.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. Well, talk to me about our journey together. So we met this summer when you were signing up for Art of Selling Art. Where were you at the beginning of that? And then were there specific things that you felt were helpful that would be helpful to our listeners?
Čedna Todorovic: So I’m going to be fully transparent and say, as you mentioned in the email that I sent, a very good friend of mine told me that she was doing the bootcamp with you. And I value her opinion and we’re close colleagues and we share ideas and information. And she said, “I’m doing this, I think you should consider it.”
Čedna Todorovic: And then the first thing that I thought was like, “Oh, God. Not another course.” Right? Because as photographers, there’s so much out there and I’ve done my fair share. I’ve paid for workshops overseas. I’ve done a couple of other platforms. And I know a lot of people that have literally bought every single thing in existence out there, and they’ve never even watched it or made their way halfway through it, nevermind implemented any of it before they move on and buy the next thing.
Čedna Todorovic: I think we’re in a time or in a culture of everybody wants to be an overnight success, right? I think everybody wants to just, somebody show me the way. I will pay you $50,000. Just tell me how I can be a millionaire tomorrow. Right? I know that it’s a grind. I’ve grown up knowing that it’s a grind, and I believe that you have to put in the work, right? So I was really hesitant. I was like, ah.
Čedna Todorovic: And to be honest, I didn’t know much about you, right? I didn’t know much about your work, because like I said, I wasn’t in the family space to be looking for photographers that were doing that. And then I did my homework and looked at some stuff and I thought, well, this is really interesting. But I was really interested in the business aspect of it, right? Because I think a lot of times photographers are chasing the next best light or the next best thing. And I have learned from being a hobbyist in wedding photography for 12 years that this has to pay my bills. I have two children, right? Like this has to pay the bills. I’m not here to just play artist anymore.
Čedna Todorovic: So I was interested in the business model. And I think, for me, it was an investment. And because I’m in Canada, I have the currency conversion, which is also a thousand extra on top, right? So all those factors went into it. But I think you have to be really ready to, I felt at that time… Well, first of all, I really appreciated the fact that you responded back to my questions because that was, like I said, I just laid it out there and you responded to everything. So to me, from an integrity point of view, that was really important because it’s like, oh, well this person actually took the time to respond. So that was one of the main things.
Čedna Todorovic: But I think it felt right for me at the time, because like I said, I have a goal of growing my business. I have certain life conditions, if you will, that drive my purpose, right? And I really felt like this was going to give me the clarity that I was looking for on a lot of fronts. And it has done that. Absolutely.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, I feel like you were in such a hard position when we met, because you had just been, we won’t say what, but you’d just been somewhere to a very expensive training in the States to learn to scale your business and just felt like it was all this money and time and effort and it just fell flat for you.
Čedna Todorovic: Yeah. It was about $6,000 of expense and it was a complete waste of time. Complete waste of time.
Allison Tyler Jones: Devastating.
Čedna Todorovic: And I think for me, that’s what it was. So I think, when I heard you say well… And I think, again, this comes from all the content out there, right? All the get rich schemes and how to do all this stuff. And it’s like, if you’re not making millions of dollars, you’re a nobody. Right?
Čedna Todorovic: I’m a one man show. How am I going to scale this business? It just was very incomprehensible to me. So when you said there is a way to scale your business and not have to have 10 full-time employed staff, and I was like, oh, really? Like I never thought it was possible because everything that everybody else is telling me is that I need to do all these other crazy things. So that, I think also it piqued my interest as well.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, like I said, you had great questions. And so what do you feel like, since our time together, what do you feel like you’ve implemented? Because you are such an implementer. Is there anything in particular that you’ve implemented that you felt like has moved the needle for you? That has really made a big difference in all these last few months?
Čedna Todorovic: Oh, my God. So, well, first of all, I’m implementing everything as we speak, right? So I haven’t actually-
Allison Tyler Jones: Why does that surprise me?
Čedna Todorovic: … And I do have some very, again, severe goals that I want to do by mid-January. We’ll see if it’s possible or not. But I’m definitely calculating your average sale, right? I’m going into that. And that’s a bit of a manual exercise for me. Although I do have a CRM, I can’t quite easily pull all those numbers out, so I have to do that. So I’m really interested to see where that’s going to land.
Čedna Todorovic: I am completely overhauling the service offering, the product offering. I’ve had some complications in the sense that the supplier that I’ve been dealing with for the last two years, it has not been a very constructive or positive relationship. So I need to just accept the fact that I need to cut that rope and I need to look somewhere else. So that, as you imagine, I need to get new samples, talk to new people. That’s going to take a while, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Čedna Todorovic: But I’m working on that. The consultation piece and really that prep work, I’ve always done a consultation but there was a lot of opportunity for improvement there on that front.
Allison Tyler Jones: Great.
Čedna Todorovic: I would summarize the three key things because there’s so much there, right? From identifying your best clients to understanding your financials, to what products do you want to offer? How do you price them profitably? The systems you need to have in place. The client experience. There’s so many layers, right? Three main things that when I sat down to really think about what was the biggest value to me, I would bucket it in three compartments.
Čedna Todorovic: The number one, like I said, was clarity. And that’s asking the right questions, simplifying the things that I was doing. Clarity of my purpose. Clarity of how I want to do things. Clarity of why I’m doing things. Clarity around building a business for your best clients. It seems like such a simple thing that I just didn’t think about it. I was always trying to please the next guy coming through the door. So that was very big for me.
Čedna Todorovic: And I tend to overcomplicate things often. I think. I just feel like it comes from lack of trust in yourself. So you feel like you want to do something, but you’re like, I don’t know if it’s the best thing to do. You want somebody else to validate that, right? I think that’s part of personal growth. But it has simplified a lot of things for me. And being able to ask the questions in our Q&As and having a different perspective from other people has been very, very valuable.
Čedna Todorovic: The second bucket was setting your own rules of engagement. I think that has brought a lot of clarity because I already mentioned I struggle with boundaries and I don’t like conflict, and I am a people pleaser. But I think thinking about introducing certain boundaries really, and in a way, what’s the right wording? What’s the right-
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Čedna Todorovic: … Bring it up. What’s the right way to talk about it? I think that was very, very valuable to me. And talking about things that I’ve actually implemented. One of the first things that’s probably going to get implemented before the products and everything else gets sorted out is the control of my calendar. Because my calendar, and we’ve talked about that too, I was saying how do you get families to come in in the middle of the week at 2:00 PM?
Čedna Todorovic: To me, I couldn’t even propose that because it just felt like nobody would ever take that. So my consultations, shooting days, discovery calls, they are all over the bloody map. I’m talking like every given day, I could literally kill myself over just trying to stay up with what I need to do that day. And that’s not a constructive use of your time because you cannot shift gears in your brain.
Allison Tyler Jones: No.
Čedna Todorovic: From discovery call to shooting, to editing, to doing this, to that. I’m just all over the place. And I think I took a lot of false pride in myself for those things. Like, well, you can just do it all because you’re just-
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely.
Čedna Todorovic: … But now it’s like, no, you are crazy, but not in a good way. So the first thing is shoot days are going to be only on two days a week, and it’s going to be the same days every single week. And then I’m going to figure out how I’m going to maneuver the rest of this. So the calendar thing is a must, and I’m implementing that come January 1st.
Čedna Todorovic: But the third thing, which is actually the most important, is scope definition. And the reason I laugh at this is because the irony of this actually is killing me. Because like I said, I worked for 20 years in corporate, in oil and gas and large utilities. And I worked in project management, and I worked in contract law, and I worked in business process improvement. And definition of scope is the forefront and the starting point of absolutely every single thing that you ever touch.
Čedna Todorovic: And I was a lead facilitator in gathering business unit requirements and translating these very diverse, complex, cross-functional needs into a tangible plan. How did I not think this was important in my own business is absolutely freaking beyond me. So my entire first year I spent photographing clients, literally who would secure a session with a session fee that was moderate, not anything exorbitant, and there’s a lot of stuff included. And I would photograph for three hours. I would wait for them to be done, their hair and makeup, for 90 minutes. I would cook and make lunch in the middle of all of that. I would serve lunch because it seemed they can’t go without eating for five hours. That’s kind of like the European hospitality piece I can’t decouple, right?
Čedna Todorovic: So the night before I’m running to the grocery store, I’m buying all this high-end charcuterie stuff. I’m building this stuff in the morning while they are hair and makeup. I’m bringing out lunch. I’m photographing for three hours. We’re doing all this stuff, plus the consultation, plus the discovery call. And then you’re going on a hope and a prayer that something will come out of it, because I never nailed down what they wanted or what they liked or what we were doing. And it was kind of like hope and a prayer.
Čedna Todorovic: And granted, part of that was learned in other educational platforms, and it’s where I started. Live and learn, no ill feelings. But I think regardless if I’m photographing a single individual or a family or… Okay, branded commercial stuff is a bit different because that’s preset. I have preset package for that. But it’s just like, what the hell? And I knew it was wrong. I knew the whole year while I was doing it, but I did not know how to wheel it back or how to do it differently. So scope definition was massive and very-
Allison Tyler Jones: Life-changing.
Čedna Todorovic: …huge in my case.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and you’re not alone. We’ve all done it and we’re creative. And like you say, you have your European hospitality, and I have my suburban hospitality or whatever you want to call it. We want our clients to have a great time and we want to continually add and make it better the next time. And how do we add and make it great?
Allison Tyler Jones: But at the same time, I feel like the exercise, just when you were describing all of that, then I did this and the charcuterie board and then this, and then this, and I’m like, this is a whole exercise. And like, please like me and please spend money with me and I hope you do. And it’s these fingers crossed rather than, okay, before we buy the charcuterie board, before we do anything, what do they need? What do they want? What are they actually going to buy?
Allison Tyler Jones: Because when somebody does something that nice for you, maybe those women that were in hair and makeup and eating your charcuterie board knew that they could not spend more than a thousand dollars. They knew they couldn’t. And then they were feeling more and more and more uncomfortable. The more you did for them, the more uncomfortable they felt. That’s the good clients, right? The good clients are going to feel guilty, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: The bad clients are going to be like, great. Damn straight, keep it coming. What else can you give me? And maybe I’ll only spend 500, you know? So it’s way better to have that defined upfront and the fact that I don’t even think you should be mad at yourself that you didn’t put those two things together, because so many people don’t. But you have that tons of experience in defining scope in another business, and a more cut and dried, less sexy, less meaningful kind of thing. But all of those skills are still in that cute little brain of yours.
Čedna Todorovic: Well, and I think that’s what’s interesting is that I feel like I possess this really strange combination of super analytical, super process-driven, drive part of me, and then there’s this very creative part of me. And I felt like I had to sacrifice one for the other. I never really spent time figuring out how do I merge those two things together, right?
Čedna Todorovic: And I think it would be a sin for me to say that. My first year of clients, they were, for the most part, were all wonderful human beings. And I still maintain a relationship and everybody walked away super pleased and all of that. But I think that also stems from this fear, like what I mentioned with families, is that I would just get bored. I was really afraid that I would get bored really quickly. And if I could not outdo myself in every session for the next client, then people would get bored and I would get bored. And what am I going to create next, right?
Čedna Todorovic: So I felt like I was really just trampling over myself trying to create this very diverse set of images for them. And granted, I could have still done that, but it would have been much easier had I known we are aiming for A, B, or C. And that’s not even their fault. I didn’t even bring it up. I did not even bring it up, right? I would ask, and when I would present my things, is there something that appeals to you or that resonates with you? And they would kind of give you an indication, but you still had no idea.
Čedna Todorovic: It’s like, oh, well you like this collection. Well, is it going to be like 5, 10, 30, 50? Like what’s it going to be? Right? So anyways, lesson learned. Lesson learned. I think what I’ve really just valued from this group, and I think this course, is that people can show you how they do their business, right? They can tell you what’s worked for them, what’s not worked for them. In this case, these courses do really help you cut the curve in many aspects. But I think there’s also so many things that you’re just never going to learn from somebody else until you go through it yourself.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely.
Čedna Todorovic: So the value really is having done enough yourself that this now becomes applicable to your situation, or you understand it from that perspective. And maybe that’s where all my questions were coming at you is because I’m trying to tie it with what I’ve experienced or what doesn’t make sense to me. And I’m trying to plug those gaps. But if you’re just coming at it cold, it probably does not ring the same way or doesn’t resonate the same way.
Allison Tyler Jones: Totally agree.
Čedna Todorovic: I think it’s also, you have to take what you learn, but you have to make it feel authentic to you and apply it to you. So it doesn’t mean that what works for you would necessarily work for me. But if I can take the guiding principle of it or if I can take the foundational element of why this is important, then I can slice and dice it. I don’t know what I’m going to do with this need for my hospitality. I don’t feel that I can just cut it out, so I have to figure out what that means, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Well, and I don’t think you should. And I think that’s where an element of not being bored. The fear of being bored, I think, is a great fear. I think you should have that fear. I think we should all have the fear of being bored. You should be fearful of being bored in your work, the actual work itself, but also in how you deal with your clients. If it ever becomes cookie cutter, to me, that is, oh my gosh. That’s my biggest fear, right? That would be death on a stick.
Allison Tyler Jones: Because I like things to be different. But the fact that you have this ability to know process, that you’ve done it before in another setting, your business is as much an art as the art itself. So I think you bring, okay, how is my European hospitality going to now in 2025, how am I going to bring that in a simplified way and a meaningful way? But also, you have to figure out your thresholds, right? At what threshold is the charcuterie board coming out? Is this a charcuterie shoot or not? Well, for a headshot, a single headshot, maybe not, unless you’re doing them all day long and the corporation is coming in with all of their employees. Get the charcuterie board out.
Čedna Todorovic: But you know what? It’s funny. That’s just one little symptom of all the things I’ve done. But I mean, we’ve talked about putting even the boundaries around the way that your products are sold, right? And so we talked about the gift prints, right? I gave away, when XI went back and added it up, I gave away $15,000 worth of 7 X 10 matted gift prints this year. You know why? Because I gave it to anybody and everybody, I gave it to the headshot people. “Oh, would you like one for your mom? Here you go. Here you go.”
Čedna Todorovic And I was printing these matted prints, giving them away because deep down inside, I really am a very generous person. And I like to give. I’m actually, that part, I’m not doing it to be liked. That’s just who I am, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Čedna Todorovic: It comes that point where you’re like, okay, idiot. You can’t run a business this way. You really can’t bite that. And you, somebody then spent $10,000 and you really feel like giving them two gift prints is going to… I will do it, right? But I was giving it for headshots. I was looking at it like it was candy. It was just like, “Here you go.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and the thing is, it’s also realizing not recognizing your worth, not recognizing your brand. I’m sitting here looking at… Your hair is darling. You are always so put together. You have this genuine… I mean, people can hear it in your voice and your personality. And being able to work with Čedna is enough. They secured a session with you.
Čedna Todorovic: Well, that’s a whole another conversation. We can go take a read on that topic.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. But really. And the fact that you bring your talent to bear for them and make them look good in those images. And then also, if it’s with a family that you’re celebrating, like that is the gift, right? And then of course if somebody is really over the top, then gifting, right? But when you think about, because before, I’m going to take you back to earlier in the conversation where you’re saying it’s really not all about money. And I know that I think we can all say that. But at the same time, those two kids are still going to need to be educated. Those lights that are behind you, that I see that there’s electricity flowing into your home. The food needs to be eaten on a regular basis.
Allison Tyler Jones: So yes, it is the blood that’s pumping through the business. You do need to be profitable. So I think just accepting. And that’s really hard for me to do, too. It’s hard for me to realize okay, that is the gift, is that I am giving the attention. And it’s so easy for me to see it in other people. It’s easy for me to see it in my sister. When she walks in and is attending to her client about their home and how they’re going to design, it is like mainlining crack to have her attention and her talent on your project. It’s like, just open all the veins and give it all to me straight. It’s so good.
Allison Tyler Jones: And that’s how it is when somebody’s being photographed by you. But we don’t see it because it’s easy for us because we learned it. And so we just discount it, think we need to add all of these other things on top of it, and we simply don’t. In fact, it devalues what we do and it makes people doubt, well, I thought this was really great, but okay, if she’s going to give me a bunch of stuff, then okay.
Čedna Todorovic: There’s definitely work to be done on that front for sure. And I think that was the very first thing I had to work on before I even had the courage to start this business. And that’s something that’s a constant thread. And I think the piece about not enough, whether I feel that I’m not enough or that my work is not enough, is directly tied to the not enough in the work that I do that for my business. The goals that I set, there’s just always this, it could be better. It needs to be better. So that’s a personal thing you definitely need to work on.
Allison Tyler Jones: I think it’s, we’re constantly having that tug of war. But the thing that I love about what you just said is that you went back and put a number to all the stuff that you gave away.
Čedna Todorovic: Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: And then once you have that number in your mind, you’re like, okay. Let’s make it… That’s a lot of charcuterie boards. $15,000.
Čedna Todorovic: It’s probably a couple of three course dinners, too.
Allison Tyler Jones: But to know that then it’s like, okay. Wait a minute. I don’t need to do that. So if I am going to gift, how am I gifting and under what threshold and all of that? So we could go for three hours because I just love the way your mind works and I’d love to talk to you about things, but I appreciate you sharing your experience, where you come, where you’re going. I definitely know that we will have you back because I want to.
Allison Tyler Jones: Because you’re such a fast implementer, I think that you’re going to change so quickly and have such great success. But I really have appreciated getting to know you. You’re such a valued member of our community and I really appreciate you being here today.
Allison Tyler Jones: Do you have anything that you want to leave people with as we go? If you, maybe you could say to yourself as a younger or newer photographer, or maybe to some photographers who are struggling with similar issues, what would you say to them?
Čedna Todorovic: Well, I would say definitely always evaluate and assess where you’re at in business and what’s working and what’s not. And if things are not working and you don’t know how to fix them or you don’t have that clarity or you don’t have that outside perspective you may need, look for resources. And you are one such great resource.
Čedna Todorovic: So people should look at those resources, do their homework, and listen to the things that you have at your disposal and figure out does this feel aligned to where you would like to go? Does it feel ring true to you? Right? Identify with the person on the other end. Do you identify with their methods, their way of doing business?
Čedna Todorovic: I think oftentimes we buy things from people where we don’t really… I mean, everybody claims they’re successful, right? Are they, are they not? I don’t know. That’s your homework you’ve got to do, right? But do you want to learn from people that really feel like they share similar values, right where you want to go?
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s a good one.
Čedna Todorovic: Yeah. And apply things that you learn. Look for a community of similar people and apply things and adjust them as you need to so that they feel authentically like you. Like I said, I did not take your course so that I can become Allison, because there’s no point in doing that. I can’t be Allison. I don’t want to replicate your way of shooting or your lighting or your sets necessarily. But there’s been tremendous value in taking things that I need and figuring out how to blend them in with my business. And that’s invaluable.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, I love it. It’s been an honor to have you with us, and I so appreciate you and appreciate your wisdom and your great brain.
Čedna Todorovic: Thank you.
Allison Tyler Jones: And your European hospitality.
Čedna Todorovic: Thank you very much.
Allison Tyler Jones: Thank you.
Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison at dotherework.com and on Instagram at do.the.rework.
Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait…
Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait…
Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait…