[00:00:00] I quit my full time job to pursue photography full time with just one client. And no, they didn't pay me 10 grand. In fact, I made less than a thousand dollars from this client. How was I able to pull this off? And was this a good idea? In this episode, we're discussing when the right time is to actually quit your job and go all in on your creative business or freelance career.
There's really only two good ways to go from a nine to five job to a full time creative. One, you can acquire a bunch of clients, have some longterm retainers in place and know that 100 percent you'll have reoccurring revenue. Each month. If you quit, you'll know you'll, you'll be financially okay. Then there's number two.
You don't have any long-term retainers and you've managed to acquire just a handful of clients, and if you quit your job, you won't have that financial security and the risk will be a lot bigger. Or will it? This episode is talking about how I was able to quit my job with just one client and no, I don't have rich parents.
I wasn't taking any outside money. I didn't [00:01:00] have that much saved up. I was able to do this by using a systematic approach to acquire clients. I knew that if the system worked and I could get one client, I could get 100 more. So let's take this back all the way to January of 2020. I was working a job and I wasn't happy at the time.
I was trying to get my photography business off the ground. I had dreams to work for myself. I was tired of the 9 to 5 grind. And the thing was, the work that I was doing at my job, it wasn't that bad, but my heart just wasn't in it. 40 hours a week devoted to something I didn't like, just didn't feel right.
I felt like I was wasting away in my twenties outside of the nine to five hours I was putting in the work. I was honestly grinding to get my business off the ground and I wasn't gaining that much traction in terms of getting clients. I was learning all about sales, all about marketing and all about building systems around this.
I was learning from YouTube and online courses that I bought from people that have already done this. I was just going to copy their formula and [00:02:00] try and implement it into my own business. I knew one thing. I didn't want to rely on referrals. I want to do it myself. I knew I could ask some friends for referrals and get my foot in the door, but with referrals, they just wouldn't be sustainable.
I could get a few as a favors from friends and family, but that wouldn't be a system that would guarantee me referrals over and over again. Instead, I went down the sales method. I was going to do cold outreach, book discovery calls, send proposals, and close deals. This made sense in my head. It sounded like a numbers game where if I put in enough effort, I would get results.
If I cold emailed 50 leads, maybe 6 responded, 4 might hop on the phone, 3 might want proposals, and 1 might sign on to work with me. There are thousands of companies out there, so I knew that if I could just prove that the system worked, I could repeat this process over and over again. And in July of 2020, that's exactly what happened.
My system worked, and I signed my first client using this method. I put in my two weeks notice right there and then, and I was off to the [00:03:00] races. Now, this didn't come without risk here. Just because I signed one client didn't guarantee me I'd be able to sign more. Let me break down the decision process that actually led to me going full time in photography.
First, like I mentioned, my system worked, I had proof that this worked. There are thousands of companies out there that could use my services. And if I could sell a fraction of these companies, I'd be able to earn a living doing something I loved. Second, I was on the verge of burnout. I was putting in a lot of work outside my 9 to 5 in order to get this business off the ground.
It was almost a year of concentrated effort on my side hustle to actually get it off the ground. In October of 2019, I told myself I would make this work. So every day before work, I would wake up, put in work. During my lunch break, I would work on my business. And same thing. After my nine to five, when I got home and after a while, it was brutal, but I knew that if I could have those extra 40 hours a week, devoted to my own business, that [00:04:00] I would thrive.
The hours I spent at my nine to five were really draining, not because I didn't like the work, but because I knew that every minute I didn't spend working on my own business meant that I was falling behind. I had a dream and I want to work towards that dream. I was teetering between getting drained by my job and feeling fulfilled by my passion.
And I felt the scale tipping in the wrong direction. I had to correct that course before it was too late. The third reason I made this jump was because I had some money saved up as I was working towards a stream. I was saving money in the background. I saved about six months of living expenses and I knew that this would hold me over for a while.
I would quit and I knew I'd be okay, even if I didn't sign any single clients for six months. I gave myself a six month window to actually make my dream work. If I was wrong about my systems working, then I would go back to my nine to five and call the quits. I'm still here so you can guess how everything worked out.
So that's how I made the choice. I had a system that worked. I knew that if I could devote more time to [00:05:00] that system, I could maximize the chances of it working. I had the money saved up as a buffer here. And these three factors turned what may have been a reckless decision into a calculated risk that I knew would pay off.
Quitting with just one client would be reckless unless you had all these things in place. Being reckless is dumb, but taking risks that will pay off in the long run. That my friends is how you find success in the entrepreneurial game. Now, that's how I made that choice
But there's another way to The way you can do it as well is to wait to have a few clients, a couple of retainers in place that you have that predictable income. And once you have that income, you can quit. For me, this didn't really feel like an option since I was on the brink of burnout and I really wanted to start working in my own business, but this could be an option for someone out there.
For me, the longer that I postponed my decision to quit, the less likely I felt I would succeed. But you may be different and you may love your nine to five and not feel burned out at all. That's a very fortunate [00:06:00] position to find yourself in. And if you can hold that for a while, you'll be able to quit with a lot more security.
But there is something to be said about just diving in and having a fire lit under your ass so that you don't have that plan B. I do think that it helped me that I had to get clients to sustain myself. I had to work harder. It helped me wake up every morning motivated to work. It caused good stress that kept me focused and it allowed me to be in an all in.
On this passion.
Now, do you think I made a reckless choice here or a calculated risk? I had that system in place and the timing was there and I had six months of living expenses saved up. Looking back, I don't think I could have done it any other way. I don't regret my choice one bit.
Now, if you're wondering what this system is, I talk about, I lay it all out in my free workshop at 60 minutes. We walk through my entire client acquisition process, how to price and how to actually scale your business to get those big retainer deals. That's in the show notes. If you want to learn that system, go ahead and [00:07:00] secure your spot right now.
Thank you so much for listening and I will catch you in the next one.
