Today’s guest is Annemie Tonken. Annemie lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She has been a professional photographer since 2010 and is the owner of Megapixie Photography.

She also teaches creative entrepreneurs how to run profitable, sustainable businesses they love, by focusing on how they can develop helpful business systems and strategies. And, she’s the host of a business podcast for photographers called This Can’t Be That Hard and the creator of the Simple Sales System, which is used by thousands of photographers worldwide to create in-person sales-level income and service in an automated way.

In this episode, we talk about:

• How she became a photographer and later focused on family photography.
• How a surgery left her income and business vulnerable — and she vowed to change that.
• Her lightbulb moment that led to her membership program.
• Why we should think creatively about the business side — and not just the creative services we provide.
• The importance of listening to the challenges many of your clients continue to have.
• Tips on how to set up and sell your own membership program.
• Why this is a good model for branding photographers and writers, too.
• How to adopt this model to service businesses beyond photography.
• What freelance photographers struggle with and how Annemie responds.
• The three phases of business Annemie thinks about.

Biz Bite: Conduct an audit of your business systems — with the goals of automation and outsourcing.

Resources:

• Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
• Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
• Annemie’s This Can’t Be That Hard website, podcast and courses
• Annemie’s This Can’t Be That Hard Instagram account
• Annemie’s photography website
• Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
• Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn