I'm not a salesman

but I think it's what I need to become.

Firstly, happy New Year to you all! I hope 2025 is filled with leveling up—whatever that looks like for you.

For me, it’s about accepting that I do, in fact, need to learn how to become better at business to achieve what I want in life.

I’m not currently a salesman, but I have been one in previous roles, which is ironic because what made me bad at it was my honesty. I worked for a telecoms company that wanted me to upsell everything to everyone. I’d have an elderly grandmother come in and ask about her credit, and I’d get her a deal where her phone would work for the cheapest possible amount. Great for her, terrible for the company. They wanted me to sell her a phone plan—lock her into a contract—and earn commission. While that might be fine for 99% of people, I wasn’t about that dishonest life, even for a few dollars.

Ironically, honesty is what I still hold dear. So let me be clear: lying for gain is off the table.

That said, I SUCK at the business side of my business. I have a degree in finance and accounting, but let me tell you—it hasn’t been much help. This year, I’m starting with intention: upgrading my business skills. Creatively, I think I’m getting there. I can look back at shots I’ve taken so far, and there are some amazing prints in there. My issue, like many artists, isn’t the work itself—it’s selling it.

I don’t mean literally standing in front of people yelling, “BUY MY PHOTO!” (Maybe I should, but I’m not there yet.) I do want to take steps to level up the business side of my creative pursuits.

Two things I want to focus on this year creatively:

Leveling up and scaling my portrait work. I love working with people, creating images that tell their stories and resonate with viewers.

Selling prints. For someone whose goal is to make a living from fine art photography, I’ve done remarkably little to enable it.

To that end, I’ve spent the past few weeks drafting a business plan, budget, and other structures to work toward something concrete. I plan to increase traffic from Substack to my website because understanding why we’re here matters. I’m here to share my thoughts and write about my creative journey while using platforms like Instagram and Substack to guide people to my website.

Substack, for me, is more of a journal—a space to share my thoughts for others to take what they will.

Instagram, however, will now have two purposes:

A page for my work—portraits and everything else I do.

A dedicated page for prints I aim to sell.

Many of these prints will be small because I want to share the incredible volume of work I’ve created over the years. We’re talking about seven years of almost daily photography—roughly 2,555 days. My catalogue, including work shot for others, likely holds millions of photos. And yet, I feel like I’m just starting to find my groove.

So why write this? Is it to tell you I’ve taken a lot of photos and suck at business? No!

I’m here to say I’ve taken a lot of good photos and am actively working to improve the business side of being an artist.

And so far, even though we’re only in the second week of the year, I’ve already locked in a portrait session for next week. I’ve also spent most of this week sorting through photos for my first print drop. So far, I’ve selected 50, which will take me through February. Let’s see how it goes.

I’ll leave you with a quote shared by a friend and mentor:

If a man does not know which port he’s sailing to, no wind is favorable.

You can always change direction, but a ship without a heading will drift.

Get clear on what you want, and make 2025 your year.

Love you all,

Adam