This Can't Be That Hard

Hosted by Annemie Tonken

Business Marketing Entrepreneurship Arts

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383

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Aug 2026

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About the show

You love photography, but running a business? That's a different story. If you've ever thrown up your hands trying to figure it out yourself and said "This CAN'T be that hard!!!" you've come to the right place. Host Annemie Tonken's secret superpower is cutting through the confusion to give you actionable, step-by-step strategies and systems that will help you build a business that reflects your values, serves your needs, and thrills your clients. Tune in to find out why thousands of photographers around the world love Annemie's simple, you-can-do-this approach to everything from pricing to marketing to customer service... and so much more! Whether you're still just dreaming of starting a photography business or have years of experience under your belt, you'll find ideas and inspiration every week to help you run a profitable, sustainable business you love.

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September 8, 2026Episode 38511 min

385 - Marketing Monday with Maddie Peschong

Being your own boss comes with a lot of big benefits, but there are challenges, too... and one of the surprising ones is how hard it is to get things done when you're the only one managing your time. On this week's Stories & Shorties episode, Maddie Peschong is sharing her secret weapon: Marketing Mondays: a block of time every single week that's just for marketing, no matter what else is going on. In this episode, she's sharing: Why Marketing Monday works even though it looks a little different every week How she protects that time, even when life gets in the way How she uses that time, including her strategies for client research Why visibility and marketing are skills you build, not talents you're born with If you've ever felt the challenges of time management as a business owner - especially when it comes to marketing - this is a must-listen. Resources: New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources. Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access. Long-time listener? Leave a review!

September 1, 2026Episode 38415 min

384 - Busy Season Hack: Minimizing Time & Maximizing Profit with Lyndsay McNiff

This week, we're shifting gears. The busy season is upon us, and from now straight through the holidays, we're all going to be chasing our tails in one way or another - with marketing, with sessions, or even just with general pre- and mid-holiday chaos. So instead of hitting you each week with a longer, meatier episode, I've put together a series we're calling "Stories & Shorties." These are bite-sized tips and stories from some of my favorite photographers and educators, intended to give you those little boosts of business-focused inspiration you need each week. We're kicking things off with a fantastic, outside-the-box strategy from Lyndsay McNiff, who realized the hardest part of her busy season sessions wasn't the time she spent shooting... it was everything around it: wrangling kids off the bus, prepping dinner, handing things off to her husband, and loading the car. Thanks to the strategy she's sharing today, Lyndsay is able to manage four to six sessions a week while keeping up with soccer games and family dinners. This is one of those creative business solutions that's almost too simple to believe, and will leave you wondering why you didn't think of it first! Resources: New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources. Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access. Long-time listener? Leave a review!

August 25, 2026Episode 38335 min

383 - Playing the Long Marketing Game with Tiffany Crenshaw

Here's something see all the time (and have fully been guilty of myself): you run a marketing campaign, it does what it does, and by the time it's over, you don't want to think about it any more... you're just onto the next thing. You skip the debrief. You promise yourself you'll remember what worked. But then six months later you're reinventing a wheel you've already built two or three times. To close out our back-to-school marketing challenge, I brought on my friend Tiffany Crenshaw from Animal House Photography and Tiffany Crenshaw Education. Tiffany - a business owner and homeschooling mom of three - coaches photographers on building a business that fits their life instead of swallowing it whole. In this conversation, we get into: Why starting a campaign with the end goal in mind, before you touch a single email, changes everything downstream How to block off your personal calendar before you set a booking goal, so the plan actually fits your life The "hand raiser" email and multiple-choice poll that gets real answers out of leads who didn't book Why Tiffany schedules a quarterly planning day and an end-of-year "SHE-EO weekend" to turn this season's data into next season's roadmap Tiffany is one of our speakers at the Consistency Club's live marketing summit on September 1st, and she's sharing a free quarterly mini planner to help you map out your own goals and action steps. LINKS: Connect with Tiffany — see the storytelling, authentic-moments style she talks about in this episode Follow Tiffany on Instagram Resources: New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources. Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access. Long-time listener? Leave a review!

August 18, 2026Episode 38236 min

382 - The BTS Marketing Challenge: Manage your Messaging with Melody MacDonald

You know that feeling when you get a client email, a phone call, or even just an inquiry and your heart starts racing... Maybe it's excitement, maybe it's fear, or maybe it's a combination of the two, but according to our nervous system, it's all the same. We talk a lot on this podcast about what to say to fill your calendar. What we don't talk about enough is how what's happening in your body when you respond tends to show up in your words whether you mean it to or not. That's exactly why I wanted to bring Melody MacDonald back on the show. Before becoming a full-time photographer, she spent 21 years in 911 dispatch, and now she's built an entire teaching practice around the thing dispatchers know better than almost anyone: how to stay regulated when everything in your body wants to go into panic mode. In this conversation, Melody and I get into: Why automation should remove repetition from your business, never the humanity, and how to keep it that way The "pause" practice she uses to keep cortisol spikes from writing her emails for her Why every no, yes, and silence is just information, and how to use it instead of spiraling from it A simple way to respond to a no that keeps the door open, sometimes for years Melody is one of our two guest speakers at the Consistency Club's live marketing summit on September 1st, and she's also sharing a free five-minute reset for photographers, worth grabbing before your next hard conversation. Resources: New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources. Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access. Long-time listener? Leave a review!

August 11, 2026Episode 38125 min

381 - Creating an Appetizing Offer Menu

Most restaurant menus have a handful of apps, a handful of entrees, and a handful of desserts: enough to give people choices and accommodate dietary restrictions, but not so many that people get overwhelmed. So why do most of us limit our photography "menu" to one or two items? When your business only has one package, one price, the offer is take it or leave it: you're handing hesitant clients an easy way to say no by saying nothing at all. In this episode, I'm breaking down: Why a single, rigid offer might be costing you bookings How to navigate your public-facing pricing so it signals flexibility (without being overwhelming) How to develop an off-menu "special" that you can bring out in special cases, and Why figuring out what's actually causing someone to hesitate matters more than guessing and discounting This is part two of our back-to-school marketing series. And if you haven't grabbed your ticket for the September 1st marketing summit yet, a Consistency Club membership gets you in. Resources: New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources. Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access. Long-time listener? Leave a review!

August 4, 2026Episode 38036 min

380 - The Back-to-School Marketing Challenge: Organizing Your Leads with Dayna Schaaf

It's August, which means it's probably feels way too early to think about Black Friday, holiday cards, or filling your calendar for Q4... but that's exactly why now is the time to do it! Every year I watch the same thing happen: photographers coast through summer, and then the second Starbucks rolls out everyone's favorite seasonal latte, panic sets in: empty calendar, no plan, reactive scramble. This month on the podcast, we're running something we're calling the Back to School Marketing Challenge, and this episode is step one: getting organized. My marketing director Dayna and I get into: Why proactive marketing beats reactive marketing, every single time The hot, warm, and cold lead system, and why sorting your contacts into these three buckets changes how marketing feels How to go on a "lead scavenger hunt" through your DMs, comments, and email to find people you forgot were even interested Why and how this up-front organization step will increase the effectiveness of these conversations If you're in the Consistency Club, this sets you up for our marketing summit on September 1st, where we turn all of this into an actual plan. If you're not, you're still going to walk away from this one with a spreadsheet and a plan for filling it. LINKS: Learn more about Consistency Club Resources: New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources. Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access. Long-time listener? Leave a review!

July 28, 202618 min

379 - 20 Steps in One Direction

Here's a pattern I've noticed: photographers spend months chasing a version of growth that sounds right, but never actually sits right. Typically this is because they've heard advice or purchased a course that may be well-intentioned, but doesn't really align with their unique circumstances or goals. Before they know it, they've spent their valuable time, money, and energy heading in the wrong direction, and now have to spend more of each of those things to get themselves back on track. I'm wrapping up our Beyond the Bottleneck series this week, and although this episode may sound a bit like a contradiction to our other episodes, I meant it more as a reminder: Being organized is important. Building systems is crucial. Bringing in help is a big step on the road to growth. But all of it requires a clear sense of direction. In this episode, I'm sharing: The three questions I'd ask any photographer before they start optimizing A breakdown of when outsourcing actually makes financial sense Why the math can work perfectly and still not be the right answer Growth is a strategy, not a goal. This episode is about making sure you're growing in the right direction. LINKS: Grab Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell Get The Photographer's Business Plan Glow Up Resources: New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources. Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access. Long-time listener? Leave a review!

July 21, 2026Episode 37833 min

378 - The Nuts & Bolts of Building an Associate Team with Ali Leigh

You can streamline and automate every last thing in your business, but there are still only so many clients you can take on because there's only one of you... unless you build an associate team. This week, I'm sharing my conversation with Ali Leigh, a Minneapolis-based wedding photographer who has been running an associate team for almost a decade. Ali was an open book, sharing the actual nuts and bolts: How and why she got started with associates (mostly by accident) How she finds and vets associates that represent her brand well How she pays them and handles the legal stuff How she talks to clients about the fact that she won't be behind the camera The honest trade-offs - especially the editing workload Who this model is and isn't right for This is a practical, no-hype conversation from someone who has been doing this for nearly a decade. If you've ever thought "I wish I could book more, but there's only one of me" - or the flip side, "I'd love to shoot less but I can't afford to earn less" - this episode is for you. LINKS: Find Ali at https://alileigh.com/ On Instagram at @alileighco. Resources: New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources. Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access. Long-time listener? Leave a review!

July 14, 2026Episode 37742 min

377 - Get It Out of Your Head with Colie James

My dad had a "system" for organizing his office. You could ask him for anything - any book or file or piece of paper - and he'd be able to locate it in 30 seconds. The problem? No one else had any idea what his system was, and if he wasn't available, nothing could be located. Maybe your office is super organized, maybe your desktop is as clean as the day you got your computer, but I'd be willing to bet that somewhere in your business, there are "systems" that only you have the keys to. Colie James is back on the show, and today we're getting into the practical side of what it actually means to get your business systems ready out of your head and into a format that you can hand off - to a person, a tool, or AI. Here's what we're getting into: Why "getting everything out of your head" is the first step Colie's "and what happens next?" method for mapping your client process The booked-and-busy trap: why the moment you're too busy to build systems is exactly when you need to build them How to use feedback forms as a data source - and how to utilize AI to make this easy (and objective) Colie's story about not outsourcing anything in her business until she went blind is one I keep thinking about. You don't want to be forced into building systems by a crisis. Today's episode makes it easy to get started today without the overwhelm. LINKS: Find Colie at coliejames.com Be sure to check out her podcast, Business First Creatives Resources: New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources. Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access. Long-time listener? Leave a review!

July 7, 2026Episode 37616 min

376 - Getting Out of Your Own Way

There's an old story about a fisherman who keeps going out every day with holes in his net. Even though he knows the net leaks, he doesn't think he can afford to take the time off from fishing to mend the holes. I've been that fisherman more times than I'd like to admit, and I'd be willing to bet there's a good chance you have been too. At some point in business, most of us will get in our own way. Of course that bottleneck isn't obvious - instead, it shows up as exhaustion, as the feeling that you're working harder than ever but not getting further ahead, as that sense that success is always just around the next bend... but somehow you never quite arrive. This month on the podcast, we're digging into how to recognize those bottlenecks in your own business, and covering three strategies to get yourself out of that stuck place: systems, outsourcing, and adding capacity. Today's episode sets the stage for all of it. Resources: New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources. Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access. Long-time listener? Leave a review!