5 Ways the United Photography Conference Impacted Our Business

Earlier this summer, I was working in our home office when an email from Showit (our website company) hit our inbox. It was going to be a business-changing email for us, but I definitely didn’t know it at the time. I hit “forward’ and typed in Joel’s email address.

“Hey! This just came in. Showit is advertising their United Conference in November. Are you interested?”

I hit ‘send’ on the email and expected it to the be end of this United Conference thing. We’ve spent almost as much time on the road this year as we have in our own state of Alabama. I wasn’t planning on adding a week in Arizona to our fall schedule. Much less shelling out a bunch of money on the conference, plane tickets, and a hotel.

But I’m thankful that God had other plans, and it came in the form of Joel’s reply:

“That looks awesome! Look at the lineup of speakers. Let’s go!”

Okay….

So off we went.

There are about a hundred things I could tell you about this conference.

But today, I just want to share 5 of the most impactful things that happened in our business because Joel said “That looks awesome! Let’s go.”

(And if you want to hear the other 95 reasons why we already have our tickets for United 2018, let’s go get coffee!)

5 Ways United Changed Our Business and Our Lives

1. We learned the power of choosing to do the hard things.

We all know that as entrepreneurs, there’s a lot of faith. There’s always risk and a whole lot of decisions. Doing hard stuff doesn’t come naturally – and definitely not easily. You have the power to make decisions, and you chose what you want to chase. Find the hard things and grow.

2. Brands are always evolving, and it’s okay to grow up together.

We got to spend some incredibly impactful 1-on-1 time with branding and SEO coaches. Sharing the heart of our business, who we are as artists, and how we want to impact our clients was really powerful for seeing where we are and where we came from.

Our coaches put us in the right direction for finding our voice and how our brand can better reflect us as a business. Spoiler alert: we’re going to be working on some pretty new things this winter!!

3. Budget your time like you budget your money.

I’m already pretty fascinated with the topic of productivity and leadership. (You can find a guest blog post I wrote on that topic for Biz + Bubbly here) Learning how to weave being a business owner with taking the time for life was a big topic during the entire conference. For all of you entrepreneurs out there, you know how hard that is!

There’s power in letting go of many of the routine tasks and focusing on the things that only we can do in our business. We’re going to be growing our support team even more in 2018, and we are super excited about it.

4. We had the opportunity to talk with some of our favorite educators in the industry!

We invest hundreds of hours (and dollars!) into education every year. From blog posts and free webinars to conferences and paid courses, we’ve spent hours learning from their experience and wisdom.

Meeting them in person and sharing how they’ve impacted our business and our lives was an incredible experience!

5. It gave us the direction we were looking for.

I saved this for last because this is at the heart of why United was business-changing. All of our focus during these last few months has been on a very few specific things. We felt like we were stuck in a hamster wheel – working super hard on these specific things and not exactly sure where to go from there.

We’ve reached so many goals in our business. So now what? What’s going to take us to the next level? We found so many answers and felt like we got our mojo back. And that, my friends, is priceless.

Here’s to doing the hard things, to knowing that there’s more out there, and to being intentional about every decision you make.

*hugs*

Amber

{You can find the United Highlight Video by Engage Live here!}

 

A little behind the scenes peek into our trip!

To Todd and the team at Showit: Thank you for creating a conference like this. You gave us all permission to skip all the shallow things and go right to what really matters. We didn’t even need the Hugadol (although it was deee-licious!) because you created a space that was so genuine and real.

And if you’re curious about all those incredible educators we’ve learned from throughout the years, you can check them out here!

Katelyn James: She’s incredible. She’s taken our business to a whole new level over the last couple of years, and we are so thankful for her!

Zach & Jody: They’ve been there for us since the day Joel designed our very first Covenant Photo logo and said “Hey! Let’s be wedding photographers”. We would have never been able to build our business to what it is today without them being there from day one.

Amy & Jordan: Could two people be any more adorable? We call them our “cheerleaders” because they’ve breathed so much encouragement into our business. They’re my happy place. :)

Jenna Kutcher: The day I “discovered” Jenna last year was an amazing day, for sure. Her Goal Digger Podcast has made a huge impact on our business, and she speaks straight from her heart.

Nathan Holritz: We’ve had the opportunity to get to know Nathan at different events over this past year, and he is one incredible guy. (And you can listen to our Bokeh podcast interview with him here!)

Jasmine Star: Need I say more? She is completely brilliant in business.

Natalie Franke: If you’ve heard us talking about the Rising Tide Society, this is the person behind it all. We have huge hearts for community, encouraging others, and building each other up. She’s helped bring all that to life.