Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Before You Hire Your First (or Next) Employee Do This
0 Plays1 second ago
Episode Summary:
As your photography business grows, it’s natural to feel like you need to "multiply yourself" to keep up with the demand. But before you post that job listing, Elena Blair has a vital challenge for you: Audit your systems first. In this episode, Elena reveals how she manages a multifaceted empire including school photography for thousands of children, a high-level mastermind, and an online education platform, with only two employees.
Elena breaks down her recent decision to delay a new hire for her growing school photography segment by implementing a $10/month software adjustment instead. Learn how to evaluate your client journey, maximize AI, and utilize automation to reclaim your time without sacrificing your profit margins.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- The "Two Employee" Secret: How Elena runs a complex, multifaceted business with a surprisingly small team.
- The Systems Audit: A step-by-step look at auditing your processes, software, and automation before adding to your payroll.
- Maximizing AI: How Elena uses AI for editing 150-photo galleries in just 10 minutes and uses coaching bots for copywriting.
- End-to-End Automation: The workflow that takes an inquiry to a confirmed booking with zero manual effort.
- The Profitability Threshold: Why hiring an employee might not make sense unless you are already hitting six figures.
- The Efficiency Audit: How a tiny $10 investment saved thousands in annual salary costs.
Links & Resources:
- HoneyBook: Elena’s choice for inquiry-to-booking automation.
- Imagine AI: Used for high-speed, consistent editing.
- ShootProof: Elena’s tool for automated gallery delivery and post-gallery sales emails.
- Elena’s Coaching Bot: A specialized AI tool for writing business copy.
Connect With Me:
- Follow me on Instagram
- Join my Facebook Community
- Visit my Website for More!
Subscribe & Review:
If you loved this episode, make sure to subscribe and leave a review! Your support helps us reach more photographers who want to build a profitable and meaningful business. 💛
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Business Efficiency Tweaks
00:00:00
Elena Blair
Welcome back, Empowered Photographer. I am excited today to talk to you about something that I have not actually talked about on the podcast that came to me as um my business was making some tweaks and changes and to our efficiency and how we are running.
00:00:19
Elena Blair
ah My dog is barking. Excuse
When is the Right Time to Hire?
00:00:21
Elena Blair
me. These are recorded live. So One of the things that people ask often is, how do I know when it's time to hire?
00:00:29
Elena Blair
Or how do I make my first hire?
Overview of Business Segments and Staffing
00:00:32
Elena Blair
So my photography business and education platform is actually quite multifaceted. I photograph families, newborns, and maternity um clients on my own.
00:00:43
Elena Blair
I have an associate photographer who does those as well. I have a boutique school photography segment of my business that's going to do about 20 campuses this year. Thousands of children are going to be photographed. I have an online education platform where we sell courses. i have a um high level mastermind that runs twice a year. I speak at conferences and I only have two employees.
00:01:05
Elena Blair
And a lot of people are actually very surprised by that. The business that I run is very multifaceted, kind of complicated. There's a lot going on, a lot of moving parts, and I only have two employees.
Growth in School Photography and Hiring Considerations
00:01:17
Elena Blair
So I'm going to swing it back to one segment of my business. My school photography segment of my business is really growing right now. So proud of that. Really, really growing. And we were coming up to a point where we decide we thought, should we make another hire?
00:01:32
Elena Blair
We actually are getting to that point. And that that happens in your business. You'll know when what you need to do is multiply yourself, right? there There's only so many hours in the day. There's only so many things that you can do as one person or two or three in my case, right?
00:01:48
Elena Blair
So we came across we came up against... that question, school photography segment is growing a lot, should we make a hire?
Auditing Systems and Software for Hiring Decisions
00:01:56
Elena Blair
And so anytime we are feeling like we might need another person, which I'm all about hiring people on abundance, but anytime we think about it, first, what we do is we do a complete audit of the systems in that part of our business.
00:02:12
Elena Blair
And what we did was we audited the processes, the systems, the software that we were using, the automation, the amount of AI that we were using for editing, all of that.
00:02:24
Elena Blair
And we made some major adjustments. We were able to do a software adjustment by using another piece of software in tandem with the ones that we were already using that costs about $10 month.
00:02:41
Elena Blair
That software adjustment that only cost $10 a month was enough for us to feel like we did not need to hire another person. Now, I am not saying that software or AI can replace humans. There may be a time even in this year with how much we're growing that we do decide to hire somebody, but it was so effective. So much time was saved that we are now operating on less time spent per school with the same amount of employees, but just being more efficient.
Maximizing AI and Automation Before Hiring
00:03:14
Elena Blair
So this is actually exactly what I recommend to my mastermind students when we're talking about their businesses and as they are growing or as they are looking at future growth is the first thing that I would ask you to do if you think you want to make a hire, a virtual assistant, whatever, is to audit your systems.
00:03:35
Elena Blair
and ask yourself, am I templating everything that can be templated? Am I maximizing the use of ai but it to its to its highest capability. We do use AI for a lot of our business. And I actually will share, I have a coaching bot that I have created that is like talking to me and that will write copy for you. It's amazing. I'll actually share that for you here that you can get. But we do, we ask if we are using AI to its top to its max cap capabilities. And then we, for the the biggest one that we can that we can do to save time is what are we doing
00:04:12
Elena Blair
in the automation of this process of our business.
Automation in Photography Business Workflow
00:04:15
Elena Blair
So my photography business is completely automated from inquiry to booking. um the is is completely automated. And we use a company called HoneyBook to do that.
00:04:28
Elena Blair
Now, this takes time to set that up. You do have to understand um the client journey and all of these things. And we do talk about that in my mastermind. But once you spend the time to set it up, an inquiry takes zero amount of time, literally zero. The sales process completely unlocks.
00:04:47
Elena Blair
automated. We spend zero time on sales for our photography services. And then the editing in our business is all with AI. I use Imagine AI for editing.
00:05:00
Elena Blair
So I edit a full photography session, um which I give really big galleries, like 150 photos. It edits in about 10 minutes. I do have to go in and look at it after, which is why it takes any time at all. um I do call my own session still Some people do use AI for that, and that takes me about 20 minutes. So the editing process for one full gallery for me takes about 30 minutes. We have automated the gallery delivery system, the post gallery emails so that people remember to purchase or to
The Role of Software in Cost-Effective Operations
00:05:33
Elena Blair
download. It's all automated. So we don't need more employees because our systems are so tidy. So what I would ask you if you're thinking about hiring is to first do a complete audit on every step of your client journey, every step of your editing, every step of the sales, if you're doing sales, all of that, and ask yourself, can I be maximizing the software they already have and creating better automations, which probably you can.
00:06:00
Elena Blair
And if you haven't implemented a software, HoneyBook, for example, people will say that they think it's expensive. I actually don't even remember what it costs right now, but um less than $1,000 a year, I think.
00:06:14
Elena Blair
Probably a lot less than that, actually. And if you were paying an employee, for us, you know minimum wage in Seattle is like $22 an hour or something like that. And I would pay more than minimum wage. So if you're paying an employee, then you actually...
00:06:30
Elena Blair
It's I'm not saying don't hire a human, but you actually probably could get a lot of time back by maximizing your software or bringing a piece of software on that will speed up your workflow and get you your time back.
00:06:46
Elena Blair
So there is going to come a time when you do want to make a hire. I have two employees. I couldn't do what I do by myself just with software. 100% need them so much. But I want you to ask yourself that because a lot of businesses, a lot of photographers make hires when they're only making $50,000 a year.
00:07:04
Elena Blair
You're not making probably enough for that to make sense from a profitability standpoint. Unless you're making six figures or more, you probably can't afford an employee. So I will say this again.
00:07:16
Elena Blair
I will say this until I'm blue in the face. I will ask you to check your software and make sure that you're using it to its full potential. And then ask yourself if you need to bring on a piece of software that
Resources for Business Efficiency and Call to Action
00:07:27
Elena Blair
will help.
00:07:27
Elena Blair
So I will leave links to HoneyBook and ShootProof. Those are my two pieces of software and Imagine AI, excuse me, three pieces of software. that i use for my photography business and i will also share the link to my coaching bot um these are all really effective tools that are not that expensive that are a person is going to cost you quite a bit more and you may not be ready for that type of investment just yet i hope that one day you are but you may not be ready for it yet and when i teach about photography business I want you to have a meaningful business above all, one that is so aligned with who you are and why you are doing this in the first place.
00:08:05
Elena Blair
But I also want you to have a business that's profitable and reliable. And so you do have to think about your bottom line. It's very important. And I think that auditing your software or bringing on another piece of software might be your next step.
00:08:19
Elena Blair
All right. Thank you so much for listening, empowered listener. If you have been loving these, it would really help me out if you would leave me five-star review on um Apple or on Spotify. That would be really, really helpful for me.
00:08:32
Elena Blair
And share with your friends so that we can get more ears to this podcast where I really do want to empower you to have a meaningful and profitable photography business.
00:08:43
Elena Blair
Thanks. See you on the next episode.