A success story of a friend

2012 St. Louis Rams Cheerleader Tryouts | Facebook

The link above is to the official St. Louis Rams Cheerleader tryouts. My friends company was there handling the photography and video. You see him, Steve Grappe, tagged in a few of the photos.

The offline section here is about helping B&M companies and starting said "real world" consulting companies ourself. He isn't running a company like ours but i think his story can inspire anyone here wondering what it takes to make it.

I first met Steve a few years back at my last management job. We were both sales managers. He would later move to St Louis to be a Store Manager for the company while I would leave to do sales and internet marketing for the company I currently work for.

While we were co-workers he decided almost randomly one day that he wanted to get into amateur photography. With the help of some of our more experienced staff he bought himself his first "real" camera. A $2000 digital SLR and the best camera our company kept in stock. Mind you this was his first time owning or using anything other than a point and shoot. This was at most 5 to 6 years ago.

The staff we had that had been doing amateur photography for years didn't see a lot of talent in his photos at that time. But he continued on. He started finding amateur models who needed portfolios and he began to host get togethers, first of himself and models and later of multiple photographers and loads of models. These started off in our metro area(300k people) and in time he hit larger regional cities like Chicago.

Like I said earlier he moved to St. Louis to be a Store Manager. But the St. Louis stores never did well for that company and in fact about a year ago they were all closed. But a year or so before that he got out of the manager game and opened a studio with other photographers he had met in St Louis. It is now large and successful.

So why should you care about his story?
1. He one day just decided to be a photographer. Once he made that decision he put the time and money into it that he needed to make it work.

2. He became a porfessional very quickly on the side. By helping models and other photographers he built up a great network.....

3. He was and is a master networker. The network and connections he has made IMO is why he is successful.

4. Less than 6 years after picking up that first real camera he is working with a major professional sports team.

So if you make a decision today and start taking action where will you be in 6 years?

He had every reason to fail but he wouldn't let himself. He never let people telling him his photos were not good enough stop him from making his hobby into a business.

What are you letting hold you back? if you stopped listening to your own doubts and the doubts of others where could you be in 6 years?

You've read Steve's story. You know what he did in less than 6 years? So where will you be in 2018?