Stop Deciding For Them: The Thought That's Costing You Clients
Jul 14, 2026You know that moment. You're standing at a networking event, or chatting with someone at the dog park, or catching up with a friend of a friend who just mentioned she got a new puppy. The opening is right there. All you'd have to say is, "You know, I photograph dogs. I'd love to work with you."
And you say nothing.
Or you say something vague. Something safe. "Yeah, I take some photos sometimes."
Then you drive home annoyed with yourself.
I sat down with Heather Lahtinen this week to dig into exactly why that happens. Because there's one specific thought behind it, and once you see it, you can't unsee it.
Every Problem Is a Thought Problem
Heather learned this from her coach years ago and now teaches it constantly. There are only two kinds of problems in business. Math problems and thought problems.
And all problems are thought problems.
Now, I've pushed back on this. I have reviewed pricing where a photographer is selling albums for $300. That is absolutely a math problem. The numbers don't work.
But dig one layer down and you find the thought that produced those numbers. Someone decided $300 was as much as anyone would ever pay. Someone decided their album wasn't worth more. The math followed the thinking.
Clean up the thought and the math problem tends to solve itself.
The Three Places Every Booking Problem Lives
Heather's formula for booking clients is almost annoyingly simple. Meet people. Tell them you're a photographer. Make an offer.
That's it. If you're not booking as many clients as you want, the problem is sitting in one of those three buckets.
And here's what I've noticed. About ninety percent of photographers have a problem at the very top of that funnel. They have a website. They post on Instagram a couple times a month. And they cannot understand why nothing is coming in.
Nobody knows you exist. That's the whole problem.
But there's a second group. These are the photographers who are out there doing the work. They've joined networking groups. They bring their camera places. They're genuinely meeting people and those people absolutely know they're photographers.
They just never make the offer.
"I Don't Want to Bother Them"
Heather was on a Zoom call with a new Elevate member who fit this exact profile. Great personality, active in her community, meeting people constantly. So Heather asked her about offers.
And the woman's posture just collapsed on camera.
When Heather walked her through what was happening in her head at the moment of the ask, out came the thought. "I don't want to bother them. It feels really salesy."
Alarm bells.
Because if you're thinking you're bothering someone, you will never speak up. If you feel slimy or gross or pushy, you will never make an offer. Every single time, you'll find a reason to stay quiet.
So let's agree on this up front. If any version of "I don't want to bother them" is floating around in your brain, you are not making offers. You're hesitating. That thought is holding you back and it's worth examining.
Get Energy vs. Service Energy
Here's where the whole thing turns.
The reason selling feels yucky is because you think your job is to get a client. You think your job is to convince them to hire you. Heather calls this get energy.
And yeah, that does feel gross. Because it is manipulative. If your goal is to extract a yes from someone, you're going to feel like a used car salesman and you're going to act like one too.
Now flip it.
We are in a service industry. We are not in a take-things-from-clients industry. Our job is to let people know how we help them, present the opportunity clearly, and then stay completely out of their decision.
That's service energy. It's an invitation, not a pitch.
When you detach from the answer, the entire transaction changes. Your energy is clean. You know exactly what to say, because you're not performing. You're just telling someone about something you genuinely believe in.
You get to confidently share how you help people. They get to decide if that's for them. Both of those things are fine.
Deciding for Them Is Actually Rude
This is the part that made me sit up.
Heather said she finds it extraordinarily rude and condescending to make that decision for someone else.
Think about it from the other side. If someone didn't tell you about something you would have loved, because they assumed you couldn't afford it or wouldn't be interested, wouldn't you be a little insulted?
Let me decide. Let me decide if I value it. Let me decide if I want it. That's not your call to make.
When you count someone out before you've even opened your mouth, you're not being polite. You're denying them the first right of refusal.
Don't be the one to tell yourself no. Let somebody else tell you no.
The Real Reason We Undervalue Our Work
There are two things making this harder than it needs to be.
The first is that selling our work feels personal. We're not selling a widget. We're selling something we made, so a no lands differently. It's easy to internalize.
But here's the bigger one, and I don't think enough people talk about it.
We have a completely skewed sense of what our work is worth, because we're evaluating it with our own skill set.
How many times have you heard a photographer say, "Well, I wouldn't pay that"?
Of course you wouldn't. You can do it yourself.
I'm renovating parts of my house right now. New paint led to new lights led to new mirrors led to, obviously, new faucets, because the builder grade ones looked terrible next to everything else. I have the faucets sitting in my house. I have changed a faucet before. I could watch a YouTube video and figure it out again.
But the connection into the actual plumbing is this cheap plastic thing that also needs upgrading, and we have five bathrooms, and at some point I looked at the whole project and went: nope. Hiring someone.
Now if I were a plumber, I would never pay someone to do that. It would feel absurd. Easy knowledge, easy job, why would anyone pay for this?
That's exactly what you're doing to your photography.
Because you've spent years mastering your craft, it comes naturally to you now. And because it comes naturally, you automatically discount what other people would pay for it.
Your Best Clients Actually Love Photography
Sixteen years into working with clients, here's what I've found.
My best clients love photography. A lot of them are photographers themselves. They have nice gear. They're learning. They understand exactly what goes into an image.
And they hire me anyway.
Not despite knowing photography. Because they know photography. They can see the gap between where their skills are and where mine are, and they value that gap enough to pay for it.
The very knowledge you assume disqualifies people from hiring you is often what makes them your best clients.
What If You're Too Cheap?
Back to that Elevate member.
She'd put together a really unique session offer. Five images for $250. She sent it out once. Nobody bit.
Her immediate conclusion: it's too expensive. Nobody sees the value.
Heather's immediate reaction when she heard the story: that's too cheap. She'd have priced it at $1,200 and positioned it differently.
You could watch the recognition land on this woman's face. Her brain had gone straight to too expensive and never once considered the opposite.
And pricing psychology backs Heather up. When something is too cheap, we get suspicious.
You see a three hour flight for $27 and you don't think "what a deal." You think: are they doing maintenance on this plane? Is there actual fuel in it, or are we pedaling?
Heather once had a bride tell her she was hired specifically because she was the most expensive photographer the bride could find. She figured that meant Heather had to be the best. Heather asked if she'd even looked at the photos.
If Heather had been cheap, that bride would never have called.
Higher price signals value. That's not manipulation. That's just how people read the market.
Also, one send is not a marketing campaign. Send it twenty five times.
How to Catch the Thought
You can't change a thought you can't see. And these thoughts are sneaky. They hide under the surface and just quietly steer your behavior.
So use your feelings as a barometer.
Notice when you feel nervous before sharing pricing. Notice the heaviness in your chest when you're about to make an offer. Notice when you're gripping the outcome, desperate for a yes.
Every one of those feelings has a thought sitting behind it.
When you catch one, get curious instead of judgy. "Huh. I wonder what I'm thinking that's making me hesitate here."
Then ask the better question: what would I need to think or believe to feel genuinely compelled to talk about my business?
Because if you truly believed in what you were offering, you'd be talking about it constantly. Heather will talk about Elevate all day, every day, forever, because she believes in it that much. She's never going to shut up about it. And she still leaves the decision entirely up to the person listening.
That's the model.
Key Takeaways
- All business problems trace back to a thought, even the ones that look like math
- If you're not booking, check three things: are you meeting people, telling them, and making offers
- Get energy feels gross because it is. Service energy is just an invitation
- Deciding someone can't afford you isn't polite, it's condescending
- You undervalue your work because your skill makes it look easy
- Your best clients often know photography and value your expertise more, not less
- Before you assume you're too expensive, consider whether you're too cheap
- Feelings are a barometer. Hesitation always has a thought behind it
I want you to feel as excited to share about your business as if you had the cure for cancer. That sounds extreme until you remember every client who came back years later to tell you what those photos meant to them.
Those photos matter. And when you stay quiet, you're taking that away from someone who would have said yes.
Don't be mean.
Ready to Clean Up Your Thinking Around Selling?
Heather built a bingeable course called Ethical Selling out of pure necessity, from the same conversations she kept having over and over with Elevate members. She had everyone fill out a form with every thought they'd ever had about selling, then broke each one down into the thought, the underlying assumption, and the consequences.
It's fast. It's cheap. It costs less than dinner out, especially if you're adding an espresso martini.
Find it on the homepage at https://flourish.academy.
Listen to the full episode here:
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