The Creative Client

 

 

Noémie’s story begins in France.

She originally worked in a corporate job that no longer fit her values, and had an accident that forced her to quit her job.

But this was also an opportunity to design a life that she really loved.

And that brought her to Istanbul.

But the dream was not all it was cracked up to be.

It’s one thing to do what you love.

And it’s quite another to build a sustainable business doing it.

 

The Challenges

 

When Noémie came to me she had already launched her professional photography business, but she knew it could be even better.

Even though she was developing a reputation in Istanbul to photograph weddings, births and professional portraits, she wasn’t working very efficiently, she was spending a lot of time doing the same task over and over (#successtip: repetitive tasks are good candidates for automation) and she was working too hard for the money she was making.

Not to mention, her work is seasonal, so her income was inconsistent.

She was managing all parts of her business: marketing, sales, photography, photo editing, customer service, shipping, and on, and on.

The Idea

 

Noémie told me that she wanted to use her time more efficiently so that she could take on more clients and increase her monthly income.

Not only that, she wanted to create income consistently, month after month and start having enough left over to reinvest in her business (buy more equipment, take classes to improve her skills), and take time off to travel and go on vacation.

Noémie did love what she was doing, but she wanted to make everything more sustainable and more profitable and easier to manage.

The Plan & Implementation

 

We began with a Creative Planning Session so that I could understand her challenges and her goals and then give her my professional opinion about what I thought she could do to start optimizing her time and bringing in more consistent income.

We started with a Half-Day VIP Intensive on the Asian shores of the Bosphorus and focused totally on her goals, mapping out her ideas for how she wanted to grow.

We looked at what was working and what wasn’t working so we knew what to transform.

At the end of her intensive, Noémie had a doable plan that she could go and implement.

After her Half-Day VIP Intensive, we had another Skype Intensive to work on her time management. In this intensive, we took her task list and plotted it onto her calendar (#successtip: use your calendar as your to-do list).

In addition, we added multiple streams of income to help Noémie create more stable income over the seasonal nature of her business. She is busiest in the summer during wedding season, but also offers photo classes to budding photographers during slower months, and sells her prints throughout the year (nice passive income all year round).

 

For the next three months, we had regular coaching calls to help Noémie stay focused, take consistent action, and overcome obstacles during the implementation of her personalized plan.

The Results

 

At the end of each month, Noémie would give me a progress report on her goals.

One thing we noticed is that month after month, she was exceeding her income goals.

By the end of her 90-day coaching package, Noémie had tripled her monthly income. This enabled her to save up enough to invest in a new camera and feel confident about taking time off to travel and take a vacation.

At the end of the Creative Launch Cycle, we had taken Noémie from Idea Phase to Results and in our final session, we celebrated her achievements and talked over a number of ideas for her to grow her business over the coming months.

In this short interview with Noémie, I specifically asked her to talk about how she was able to exceed her goals, because what she says is that it was really simple.

Once she had her plan in place, it was just a matter of implementing the plan; of taking consistent action.

If Noémie’s story resonates with you, schedule 30-minutes to watch our interview and then spend another 3o minutes writing down your takeaways, insights, and the action steps it inspires in you.

 

Launch Your Creative Idea

Hopefully you learned from Noémie that launching – or growing – your creative idea is simple. It does not have to be complicated.

If you’d like some help, download this Creative Launch Reference Guide I’ve prepared to help you identify which phase of the Creative Launch Cycle you are in and how you can move forward more quickly and easily.

Best wishes in your launch!

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All images belong to Noemie Deveaux. Used with permission.