Last week I launched my new website. In truth my ‘launch’ was fairly low key, there were no flashing lights or parties that’s for sure. I simply switched my homepage from PRIVATE to PUBLIC and put out a post on Instagram and my other social media channels. It took all of 5 minutes. I got a fantastic response, truly lovely. So many messages of support and praise and also some new clients too so it's definitely paying for itself already. So, given that my site was more or less ready back in July, why did it take me until October to go live?
A bit of background first. I have worked for myself, for almost 5 years now. Initially my business was totally focussed on marketing consultancy as that’s what my background was in. I left the job I was in, which incidentally I loved but it involved a lot of travel and overnight stays in London, and immediately set up with just a logo and my mobile phone. No business bank account, no website, no business cards. I guess it was easy as I’d already got a few clients that were going to more than cover the salary I’d been getting paid, so off I went. Without trying I got more and more new business. I had months where I earned 3 even 4 times my previous monthly salary and life was good. It felt like the easiest thing in the world and I didn’t look back. Well not straight away.
One of the main reasons I’d left my last role was I had experienced a breakdown, brought on by working way too hard and not looking after myself. This wasn’t the fault of my employer particularly, I've just always been built this way. I’m an extreme people pleaser! So earlier that year after coming back from a weekend away and feeling sick at the prospect of returning to the mountain of work I had to do I just broke. I visited my doctor, completely fell apart when she started asking probing questions like ‘do you ever ask for help from someone?’ Although she obviously knew straight away I was suffering from quite severe depression and signed me off work initially for a fortnight, it took me a little longer to admit to what was going on. Anyway, long story short, around 4 or 5 months passed, me signed off work and when I started my phased return I just buckled again, and so I quit.
In some ways it was a good thing, the way it happened. I’d reached rock bottom so the only way was up and so I didn’t particularly worry about money or my branding, or niching down into certain markets, I just did it. Fast forward 2 or 3 years and my mental health had plummeted again. My business was a success but I felt dreadful. I was taking on too much work, was terrible at saying no and ended up drowning, and not to mention I was letting people down because I couldn’t finish work within the agreed deadlines because I had too much on, which made me feel even worse! Again something had to change. It wasn’t a planned change really, it consisted of lots of things aligning and happening at the same time to set me on a different path towards the career I have now as a photographer. I’ve now been concentrating purely on photography for almost 2 years and I really could not be happier. Over that time my ‘niche’ has become more and more apparent, I love and adore helping women & girls to follow their passions, and given my own struggles with ‘being seen’ it became very clear that I could relate to that best and therefore help other women do the same.
This clarity over my ‘niche’ happened several months ago. I remember meeting with a good friend of mine for coffee and I was so excited, talking about how I’d finally found what I wanted to focus on and how everything was gonna be so much easier now I could concentrate purely on that mission. My previous lack of clarity hadn’t stopped me getting work but it had led to very muddled messages on social channels, and a lot of inconsistency in the frequency of my posts because I didn’t know what to focus on and so many days it was easier not to post anything, and NOT BE SEEN. So when this revelation hit, you’d think I’d have gone straight out and started shouting it from the rooftops. No. I did not. I continued hiding.
I would play with my website being the scenes, adding images, working on the copy and in truth inside of a week it was done. I sent it to the same friend for feedback and she loved it. This was about July time. Did I launch it? No. I did not. I continued hiding.
I then made the decision that I would launch before going away on holiday for a few weeks in August. That way I could put it out there, launch softly but be able to post regularly whilst on holiday to start to ramp up it’s presence. You’d think that would have been enough? No. I STILL did not launch it. I tootled off on holiday and came back to NO website.
Around this time I really really started to question myself. What the hell was I doing. I was still getting work booked in, god knows how, but it wasn’t enough. How the hell could I proclaim to help others BE SEEN when I couldn’t manage it with something as simple as my website. I've always been a bit of a procrastinator. Putting client work before my own seemed like a good thing to do, but my level of ‘putting off’ was becoming out of control. What was I scared of? Sometimes I thought I was scared of failure, the website launching, no-one liking it, no-one using it and certainly no clients being generated from it. Other times I thought I was scared of success. After all, when I had first launched my marketing consultancy it was actually the success that had brought me down, not to mention I’ve got an underlying fear of people thinking I’m showing off if I dare to mention anything about myself.
Then one day, finally it hit me. It wasn’t a fear of failure or of success. I just didn’t believe it would work. I received an email in which the writer talked of how a lack of belief in the outcome is enough to stop you actually taking action in the first place. If you don't believe that what you’re going to do is actually going to work, your mind kind of says ‘why bother’ so you never do the things you need to do. This was 100% what I was doing. Somewhere deep inside I believed the website was a waste of time, it wouldn’t work, my career as a photographer was doomed so hey, why even waste the time launching the damn site. I also began to see it was responsible for other areas of my life. Like getting back in physical shape again…I didn’t actually believe I could ever have a body I was proud of again so what was the point in putting on my trainers and going for a run, I’d just be wasting time until I failed again. Better to just give in to the inevitable, put my feet up and eat something unhealthy. I could even relate it to some of my financial situation, where I could clear certain debts but didn’t because ultimately I felt they were always gonna be there so why waste my time.
Within a week of this realisation I made the final tweaks to my website and went live, and the fact that I’ve already won new business off the back of it is a nice ‘fuck you’ to the thoughts in my head that said it wouldn’t work. It’s also boosted my confidence. Getting my work out there in the world properly doesn’t mean everyone will be a fan but it’s certainly started to convince me that ‘actually, I might be ok at this’, which in turn makes me want to promote it more. It’s a nice little vicious circle thing I’ve got going on.
Why am I sharing this? Couldn’t I just have pretended it wasn’t ready until October, launched it and ignored what went before? Well no, because that wouldn’t be of any help to anyone else doing the same thing. I meet a LOT of women, obviously, doing what I do, many of which are just at the beginning of their ‘working for myself' journeys and things like getting their website finished gets pushed down the list. Maybe they’ve made the step of getting some shots done with me, for the website, but then actually finishing it off gets put back for another reason like ‘I’m not sure what to write’ or ‘I’m not sure if I should include my prices or not’ and while that gets mulled over nothing happens.
So my message is this. What is REALLY stopping you from launching your website, approaching a potential client, having your branding shots done? Is what you’re ruminating on a genuine reason to hold back or one that allows you to hide a little bit longer, and do you truly, 100% believe you can do it? I don't think you need to be 100% confident, I still definitely still have doubts, but you have to believe enough to propel you into action. So rather than pondering about what you will and won’t put on your website (or whatever it is you’re holding back on) spend more time finding some self-belief…whether that’s via meditation (which works well for me), maybe practising some affirmations throughout the day (again another thing that works for me), or maybe working with a coach, because until you actually start to believe you can do it, you won’t make any real steps forward.
After all, what’s the worse that can happen? You might actually find it works!