You're booked solid. All the creative projects you wanted. All the clients saying yes. Your portfolio is overflowing.

But you're exhausted. Overworked. The money isn't matching the hustle. And you're wondering if building a bigger creative business means becoming a manager of people you don't want to manage.

In this episode of The Expert Edge, I sit down with Laura Higgins, who went from struggling with pricing and positioning to building a multi-seven-figure creative business. More importantly, she did it without losing the freedom, fun, or creativity that makes the work worth doing.

Here's what most creatives don't realize: being good at your craft isn't enough. A photographer can take stunning photos. A designer can create beautiful work. An agency owner can deliver incredible results. But when it comes to pricing, selling, marketing, and building systems? Most creatives freeze.

We talk about how Laura got the "niche slap" early on, shifted her entire positioning, and built a tiered system that serves creatives at every stage-from beginners to six-figure earners making $150K/month.

What you'll learn:

→ Get the niche slap - Why serving everyone means helping no one (and how narrowing down changes everything)

→ Solve for what they don't want - Why negative positioning attracts better clients than positive promises

→ Build a tiered approach - How to serve different avatars at different revenue stages with different offers

→ Promise identity, not income - Why shifting from "make $30K/month" to "become this version of yourself" keeps clients longer

→ The creative business problem - Why photographers, designers, and agencies stay booked but broke

→ How to position yourself as the expert in the creative space

→ The benchmark that works (and why it matters for your pricing)

Real insights from the episode:

Laura's journey from starting a creative business at 23 with no idea how to sell
The moment Colin told her "you're serving too many people" (the niche slap)
How she started with a $9 product (Fully Booked) to filter for the right people
Why her original promise of "$5K to $30K/month" had people leaving when they hit $30K
How shifting to a $10K/month benchmark changed her entire business
The difference between marketing to income vs identity
Why some clients want $30K/month with 20 hours of work, others want $150K/month with a small team
How creatives lose their creativity when they scale (and how to prevent it)
The role of messaging when different people have different goals
Why "what they don't want" matters more than "what they do want"

Connect with Laura on Instagram @laurahiggins (it's aura, not laura, because she's Australian). DM her, tell her you listened to The Expert Edge. She's crushing it in the creative space and if you're a photographer, designer, web designer, or agency owner looking to scale without losing your mind, check out her work. She also has a podcast called My Business Playbook if you want more from her every week.

Join us at Sell From Stage Live in-person event September 18th and 19th in Huntington Beach, California

Interested in Elite?

If you're interested in finding out more information about our Elite Coaching Program, make sure to DM me the word "ELITE" on Instagram, and I'd love to have a chat. https://www.instagram.com/colinboyd

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https://www.conversionstoryformula.com

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For all the show notes and links:

https://www.expertedgepodcast.com/blog/episode336

Connect with Colin on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/colinboyd/