060 - Embracing Your Inner Expert with Iryna Soznovska

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">After one year of podcasting and online educating, I have made a powerful discovery. Probably the biggest single stumbling block for most photographers is NOT what I thought it would be.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It’s not:<br /></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">-Pricing too low (although, that IS a problem)<br /></span><span style= "font-weight: 400;">-Confusing Branding (yep, that’s an issue as well)</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">No, the single, biggest issue for most photographers is the naked fear of expressing their opinions to clients; advising them, telling them “How I would do it if these were portraits of my family” and truly becoming the expert we already ARE. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Instead, so many of us have been beaten down by antiquated notions like, “The customer is always right.” Our clients don’t know our business, they are relying on us to help them navigate EVERYTHING from what to wear to where to hang that gorgeously lit portrait you just captured. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Instead of confidently letting our clients know, “This is how the process works,” we beat around the bush hemming and hawing and back-tracking. It sounds something like,  “Well,</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">normally</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">we do it this way, unless you don’t like that and then we will do it however you think.” In the end, we’ve failed to benefit our clients or our businesses to the best of our ability. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If I had one word to sum up today’s guest, it would be BRAVE. She learned to embrace her inner expert and because of that, the big moves and risks she has taken in her life and business are paying off. Iryna Soznovska is a portrait photographer in Manhattan, New York and she opened her studio in the middle of a global pandemic. A native of Ukraine and an adventurous former photojournalist, Iryna knows that thi