Sarah Petty

Sarah Petty is the founder of Photography Business Institute and Sarah Petty Photography, New York Times Best-Selling author, and was named one of America’s Most Profitable Photographers by the Professional Photographers of America. She’s a wife and Mom of 3.

After working as a marketing director at a top regional ad agency, and in marketing at Coca-Cola Enterprises, Sarah Petty decided something had to give if she wanted to snd more time with her young family. She opened her first photography studio 2 weeks before 9-11. As the economy fell apart, she had to figure out how to keep her doors open. Sarah quickly discovered that her newfound photography business was consuming all her time and mental energy (sound familiar?). She was on the verge of burnout, unsure how to make a real profit using a broken business model where she was giving it all away. But after transitioning to the boutique model, she got her life back and showed up to work each day as the best version of herself! And guess what? Her dream clients and family both benefited.

Now, she serves hundreds of her own clients and serves as the Dean of students at the Photography Business Institute where she teaches students like you how to create a photography business and get dreamboat clients who happily invest thousands for your custom artwork (wall art, books, and albums).

What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?

My typical day may start with me heading into the studio to mentor a group of High School students who are learning to be entrepreneurs in a program my local community called CEO. From there, I have an all-hands team huddle with my staff from around the world. Then I may break off into a smaller meeting with the leadership team of my Peak Performance Coaching program or my colleagues at the Photography Business Institute to strategize new training and our graphic designer for new marketing materials for our students.

Most days I’ll spend a few hours creating some type of social media content, podcasts, or immersion events for our students at Photography Business Institute. I may have a client consultation or session at the end of the day, as well. I’m a creative so for me to be productive, I need to make my work fun. That means collaborating with other team members often to keep my energy up and to get their creative insights as well. I love education and learning new things so I typically have an online course I’m taking or a book I’m reading to keep the ideas flowing.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I’m definitely a visionary but I also know that I need a team to help me execute on my ideas and make them come to life. I have an amazing team that helps make everything happen. I couldn’t do what I do without them.

Early on in my education business, I read a book by Les McKewon called the Synergist. I learned that I’m a visionary and a visionary needs to partner with an operator to bring their visions to life. It’s just not possible, the way we are wired, to accomplish everything we are put on this earth to do without an operator. So that’s been key for me in all my businesses. Making sure I have good operators around me to keep things moving and pushing things forward and paying attention to all the details.

What’s one trend that excites you?

I love the fact that in this day and age, women don’t have to pick between being a mom or having a career. I feel like there are so many side hustles that play directly into the skillset of creative, passionate women that didn’t exist when my babies were young. I love the trend of seeing women bring in income for their families without having to work 40 hours a week at a job where they miss out on their kids’ activities during the day.

What is one habit that helps you be productive?

I am a list maker. I’m old school pen and paper. I always have a yellow legal pad by my side. Every day at the end of the day, I rewrite my to-do list. I categorize it as: Call (for calls I need to make). Errands: (places I need to physically go) Notes: (for notes of Joy I send to potential clients in my community and Dude cards I send to my students who blow me away) and the core 3 Tasks I need to accomplish the next day.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Slow down and take time to celebrate along the way. I’m famous for quickly moving on to the next accomplishment and I do wish I’d slowed down when I was younger and really enjoyed some of the big wins in business.

Tell us something you believe almost nobody agrees with you.

I believe that this generation is going to be the most photographed and yet totally lost in a century because as a society, we do not make it a practice to print photos. We think oh, I have the digital photo on my phone or computer. But remember CD’s? We had music on them and saved photos and videos on them. And now you can’t find a device that can even read a CD. So while you thought you had what you needed digitally to access those important files you wanted to save, technology has advanced beyond that tech and therefore your CD is now worthless and those memories gone.

What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?

I am always investing in education. Whether it be an online course, a book, or hiring a mentor, every single day I am learning something new and feeding my brain with fuel and inspiration. I don’t spend a lot of time on social media or watching TV. But I do listen to a lot of audiobooks, audio education, and podcasts that are personal development-related or business-related.

When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?

This happens more than you’d think because I’m a creative. The first thing I do is change the place I’m in. So if I’m at my desk at the studio, I get up and move, maybe completely out of my office even versus just leaving my desk. I may take a walk out on the trail by my studio, I may go down to the kitchen and make some healthy food or I may bring in a team member to help me get unstuck. I often switch gears to another project and come back later to the one I was stuck on. That’s the beauty part of having a long to-do list. There is always something else you can work on instead. But I try not to sit and grind it out or beat myself up for being stuck.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?

My dad was a small business owner who owned a few bay automobile service centers, and he taught me this: Find someone else who is where you want to be in business and invest in having them mentor you to get you there faster.

Even if my business didn’t have the revenue yet to pay for it, I just knew that if someone else was doing it, it was possible for me, too. I’m a pretty impatient person so I realized I could spend years of trial and error working through it on my own or I could pay for a shortcut. And paying for the shortcut has always paid off for me.

What is one failure in your career, how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?

I remember a time, early on when I was still figuring out the boutique photography system I teach my students. I had a client who I had let skip a few steps in my process because she was a past client and I figured I would just save time for us both. BIG mistake. She loved the images and was in tears when I shared them with her. But 7 years later, she still hadn’t ordered any wall art. I failed to serve her because she wanted images of her little girl and I didn’t get them on her wall.

My takeaway was that my system serves my clients. When I break away from it, I’m doing my clients a disservice because they are not getting what they hired me to do.

What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?

I love Notability. I use it to take notes on my iPad when I’m preparing content for my students, when I’m taking a course, or attending a conference. I color code my notes, insert images, PDF worksheets, and screenshots, and move things around. I’m such a visual learner that this helps me tremendously. When people see my notes they immediately go get the notability app.

What is the best $100 you recently spent?

An orange Polaroid camera! I took it to a conference and had so much fun taking pictures with friends and giving one to a friend after we’d take a photo together. I take it to family holidays and parties and even snap photos at game night with my kids. I love having the prints of fun times with my family and friends that I tuck in my purse, wallet, etc.

Do you have a favorite book or podcast from which you’ve received much value?

I love Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s books that he wrote with Dan Sullivan. My favorite book of his is The Gap and the Gain. I find so much of the time people like us focus on the gap.

Dan and Dr. Hardy call it the gap trap. It’s where we get stuck in when we’re looking at, okay, here’s where I’m standing right now and that’s where I want to be way over there and all I can do is see the space between the two. It’s the gap trap. And then we get in a swirl and we get frustrated and bummed. And we beat ourselves up because we’re not where we want to be, that goal, that dream that ideal. It’s a miserable place to be. What they’re saying in this book is to look at the gain, where we started in what we’ve achieved versus looking forward and saying, “Okay, I’ve achieved seven pounds or losing seven pounds, but I’m still 93 pounds away from my goal.” That’s the gap. That’s the gap trap. You’re in the gap when you measure yourself against that ideal vision of perfection. So here’s the secret. This is the secret that they share to get out of the gap you’ve got to stay in the measurement of looking backwards, measure backwards. Because if you focus on the gain, you will be happy. Think about that. If you focus on what you’ve accomplished, the gain, you’ll be so happy. You have something to celebrate. And this is what hit me really hard. They said you can’t be in both at once. You can’t be in the gap in the gain.

What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?

I got totally addicted to Suits and I binge-watched it. It’s something I never do that, but it was just SO well written and such an escape from how I use my brain on a daily basis that I couldn’t stop watching it. I even got a funny mug and t-shirt because I got so into it. I tell everyone not to start watching it if you don’t want to give up a month of your life.

Key learnings:

• You have to be willing to fail and not give up if you truly want to build a life of freedom. I’ve had to reinvent my businesses many times throughout my 25 years as an entrepreneur to better serve what my students and clients need. That’s just part of being in business. I can’t get down about it, I just have to slow down and listen to what people need from me and be willing to keep going. It’s not easy, but it’s so worth it.
• The biggest leaps I’ve had in business have come from me slowing down, taking a step back and investing in a course or a mentor to show me what I’m not seeing. It hasn’t come from me grinding it out or thinking I could do it alone. If you are going to succeed you have to ask for help.
• Time goes by so fast. On the lowest days, remember that this is just a season. Make sure you are taking care of yourself so that you can handle those low seasons and keep the faith that can and will get better.