One of the hardest transitions is moving from your full-time corporate job, to full-time photographer. You’ve been half-timing it for a while and getting supplementary income, but the corporate job is killing you and you want out—to make a living doing what you love. How do you do it and still make the same income you did while in corporate life?

Well, here’s a reality check:

#JuliaSmackdown

First off, it’s probably not going to happen. You’re going to need to get real about the fact that your income may go down. As a matter of fact, it probably will. There’s a gaping hole in your income when you switch. Right now, you don’t have the time to take more clients because you have a full time job. But you don’t have enough money from the few clients you do have to leap out of the corporate job. Hmmm…. Dilemma!

What do you do?

Build a Nest Egg. While you are still part of the corporate game, play the game yourself and save. How? Act like you don’t have a job. Live like you don’t have a job. What would you do if you were fired for your corporate job tomorrow? Would you have enough?

Cut your expenses. Pare down to the bare minimum and begin saving like your life depends on it. It does. Cut costs by eating out less, ditching the morning latte, even moving to a cheaper place if you have to. It all depends on how badly you want your passion to support you.

Then save. Do it by creating an auto transfer of a certain dollar amount to a separate savings account at a DIFFERENT bank every month. And open a savings account that makes it REALLY hard for you to get the money out. No checks. No debit cards. That money is meant to STAY THERE. Then, do the same with your photo clients, Take 20% of each GROSS sale and transfer it to the other bank. If you make a habit of doing this, you’ll see that nest egg grow into something you can rely on when you quit corporate life.

Then, build a marketing strategy in your business that’s viable. Get a sustainable plan that is targeted to the right kind of client that you need to make the business grow. Your IDEAL client. The one you want to clone.

Finally, raise your prices. Do it now. Do it while you can still rely on the corporate job for everyday earnings, giving you the time and security to market to a new client segment that will pay the new prices.

By raising your prices, you’ll position yourself into a different client tier automatically. High end clients LOOK for higher prices. In their minds, high price means quality. High price means top service — exactly what they want. And while yes, you may lose some of your old “cheapey” clients, you’ll gain a crop of new ones who are right for your business, all the while, making more income per customer. And more income per customer means higher averages, more savings for that nest egg and confidence — confidence that will make it that much easier to say goodbye to the corporate golden cage.

Want to go deeper on this topic? Then, let’s keep the conversation going. How are you going to go full-time? Like, comment below, and/or share this episode from www.jewel-tv.com. When you opt-in to Jewel TV for free, you get access to all current and past episodes. And join our FB group for more discussion on everything business.

Watch this episode and more on www.Jewel-TV.com!