Thoughts from a Creative: Business owners should be supporting each other…

Not tearing each other down.

This post all stems from a thread I posted a few days ago, saying that I loved the fact another photographer (who I consider a friend) commented on another photographers thread saying their work was great and they should definitely increase their pricing. 

Before we go any further, what a photographer charges is definitely up to them, but I'm here for the energy of building each other up and genuinely supporting each other.

Another photographer clearly isn't, and they were very vocal about it. They proceeded to tell me that we should all mind our own business and basically shouldn't divulge the inner workings of our business to other photographers or business owners.

Which I completely disagree with.

This is an incredibly lonely mindset to have, and all it achieves is isolating yourself from others rather than creating a community of likeminded business owners around us that we can lean on for support if needed. There's also enough work for all of us. We afford to be making friends with other business owners, and asking for help/advice or giving encouragement as needed. Our work isn’t going to disappear because we start doing this.

It’s always served me well, and I’ve built a successful business off of this ethos.

According to this photographer, though, the industry is so cut-throat that this will take work away from us and won’t allow us to build the businesses we want.

What do you think? Do you agree?