How to coax out your X-Factor in your photography business
Image by: @jessbaileydesigns
For those of you following my daily lives in the Facebook Group, I spoke of the X-factor today. It was one of my words in the ABC’s of Marketing series, available either in the group or on my Youtube Channel.
What is the X-Factor?
In math, x represents a mystery value that needs to be solved for in an equation. I believe that’s where this expression originated, because the word describes intangible factor(s) that create an irresistible and magnetic pull on us. We can’t quite name it because it’s hard to describe, so it’s left as an x - something that we puzzle over and try to solve. Well, I take a stab at it! I believe we all have an X-Factor and that we simply don’t recognize it, or bury it under impostors, fears and doubts and minimize it under societal pressures to be accepted and not judged. In my opinion, it is a synergy of 3 elements mixed with micro-doses of many others. When these are stacked or blended, they become Gestalt — something greater than the sum of its parts.
Confidence
In my daily live appearance in my FB group, confidence is a topic that’s touched on every other day! Why? Because it underpins pretty much everything. A lack of confidence is like managing a business from a deep hole that you struggle to climb out of. Or encountering a bully that each time we take a step forward, they push us back 2 steps. Gains in confidence are direct gains in advancing in your business we all know that when we find our secret sauce, we can feel unstoppable!
How to boost it? Take actions that align with the person you aim to be. Take action when feeling the impostor creeping in, and when an idle mind starts to derail into toxic thoughts. Think of it like fitness. Walking is an action and gets you from point A to point B. Do the same with your business activities - map out a path and take it.
Another way to boost is to listen to guided meditation or affirmations daily. That’s like your diet - feed your mind information and messages that are positive and empowering. Success is a habit, and if you can kick caffeine and sugar in 30 days, you can certainly improve your mindset too.
Authority
Know your stuff. You know that know-it-all-feeling you get when you can speak expertly on a topic? No, not the impostor’s negative connotation of “know-it-all” but like the successful business owner’s “wow, she really knows her stuff” positive connotation.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary actually names the word authority as an antonym of impostor. The more you know, the more powerful you feel in that knowing and the weaker the imposter becomes. Authority builds confidence, and confidence build authority. See how it’s already getting bigger than itself?
Doubt creeps in when we don’t know or understand something. But the great thing is, that most everything in this world is learnable, or as Marie Forleo says, figureoutable.
If you’ve ever played a trivia game you will know all these feelings. A question is asked, and you just don’t even have an inkling of an answer. Like none. You can’t contribute. You feel like you know nothing, and if playing trivia with a team, you feel like a dud of a team member! And then another question is asked, and you know everything about that topic! You’re first with an answer, you can elaborate, spell it out, and give the whole back story to boot. You now feel like a shining star, don’t you? You give yourself a high-five in your mind and feel great!
Mastery
Authority focusses on knowledge, thought-leadership and influence. Mastery represents high or top skill in a particular area. As photographers there is plenty to master - our camera settings, rules of composition, use of light, flash/ studio lighting, client processes, artistry and our creative forces. While authority may come from reading, learning and synthesizing, mastery comes from practice, repetition and experimentation. Mastery means you have overcome any challenge or objection in a particular subject and have developed an ease or a naturalness in your approach. Nothing scares you; you’ve got every eventuality covered.
It solidifies as muscle memory and auto-pilot. A calm energy that no longer requires the cogs of your brain to try and sluggishly grind, to find the answer, because the answer it at your fingertips. When you feel that way about something, you gain confidence because you feel powerful and you gain authority because you also become fluent in the theories and ideas of the skill and can speak expertly.
Creating your secret sauce X-Factor
I talk about your talent stack in this post, and I believe that it also contributes as one of the nuances, to the X-Factor. Because there is no other human like you. You literally cannot differentiate as a photographer based on price, number of images or amount of time, because those are universal things available to anyone. But your talent stack is inimitable. If you’re able to tap into your unique set of skills and talents, and combine with these 3 factors, you are slamming towards a shiny, sparkly brand!
Confidence governs all; the guiding light. Authority and mastery comes from selecting a niche or 2. You cannot have mastery of everything, because by definition mastery requires a deep dive. Try deep diving on every topic that has ever surfaced on the planet - you can’t do it. There are too many topics, and our days on this earth are too few! Same with authority - it requires specificity and that needs time, depth, focus and attention to develop.
Pick a few topics related to what you would like to photograph, and go deep. Not only will that build your X-Factor but it can spill it. Because X-Factor is like the primordial ooze from the B-movie where it just takes over everything. It has a tendency to spill into other areas you may have not done a deep dive, to make you more authoritative and more of a master. For example, if you become an authority of elopements, that information will likely have spill over into regular destination weddings too, because they share some commonalities. Becoming an authority boosts adjacent knowledge and continues its upward spiral effect. Same with mastery. If you master speedlights, studio lighting is similar and you can improve in that area as well.
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