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Time-Saving Tips for Your Photography Business
68 Plays16 days ago
Episode summary: Hey friends! Today, we’re diving into time saving tips that will help you run your photography business more efficiently so you can get back to what you love taking photos and enjoying life! Running a photography business can feel overwhelming, but with the right systems in place, you can free up your time and reduce stress.
Mentioned in This Episode:
- Creating email templates to streamline communication
- The power of batch working for efficiency
- Improving your editing workflow or outsourcing editing
- Using scheduling tools for social media and blog content
- Getting the household help you need to take your business seriously
Links & Resources:
- HoneyBook – Studio management software for automating emails, get 25% of monthly for the 1st year
- Later.com– Social media scheduling tool
- Imagen AI – Outsourced editing service, get 1500 FREE edits!
- Check out my Free Pricing Guide!
If you enjoyed this episode, share it with your photographer friends! Let’s build a strong community together.
Thanks for tuning in, and remember, you’ve got this!
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Transcript
Introduction and Sharing the Lesson
00:00:01
Speaker
Hey friends, I'm back with another little bite-sized audio recording lesson for you and I hope that you're really enjoying these. And if you are, do me a favor. Community over competition, cooperative business development, tell your friends. Share this on social media.
00:00:16
Speaker
Share the link to get this free um audio podcast, secret podcast with your friends that you know are photographers because that's really the only way i'm going to get the word out. So help me out with that.
Time-saving Tips for Photographers
00:00:26
Speaker
Okay, so today want talk about time-saving tips for your photography business. um It is the beginning of October when I'm making this recording and things are busy. And so I really believe that you've got to have systems. You have to have time-saving tips. um You have to be able to be efficient because time is money. Time is actually your most valuable currency.
00:00:47
Speaker
And you started a photography business probably because you love photography, duh. And all of a sudden, photography is the last thing you're doing. It has the least to do with your business.
00:00:59
Speaker
And I've seen it happen over and over again. The overwhelm of running a business is so hard. And in the beginning, most of us are also probably working another job, managing the children and the household, all of it, right?
Personal Experiences and Efficiency
00:01:11
Speaker
i mean, if you're like, yes, that's me, I'm so overwhelmed, you are not alone. So over the years, um you know, I started my business 13 years ago. And at that time, I had a newborn, ah three-year-old, a day job as a registered nurse. was still worth working full-time as a registered nurse. And it was intense. I actually don't know intense.
00:01:32
Speaker
i figured it all out i was a lot younger but i also just figured out very quickly that i needed to create systems i had to have things in place so that i was using my time efficiently and i am really efficient with time so i'm going to give you five of my top time-saving tips to help you reduce that feeling of overwhelm so that you can get back to what you love which is taking pictures but which is also probably spending time with the people that you care about and maybe doing other things Other than your business and photography, like working out, going to lunch with friends, whatever.
00:02:05
Speaker
going help you get some of your time back.
Email Templates and Automation
00:02:07
Speaker
and Okay, so my first tip that I love that I've been doing since very early on is I think that you should create email templates. I know you should. If you are still writing every single email that comes your way from scratch, you are wasting precious time.
00:02:22
Speaker
So how are you going to do this? Well first, take some time to figure out what emails that you are writing over and over again. So these are going to be inquiry response emails, session reminders, gallery delivery, etc.
00:02:36
Speaker
Now I want you to open up a document on Google, a note, whatever, Google Drive is what I mean, and craft a well-written email that can be used universally in all of these scenarios.
00:02:50
Speaker
So now when someone inquires, you can just copy and paste that email and make the minor tweaks that you need to to personalize it and hit send. This is going to take you some, something that usually took five to 10 minutes is now going to only take you one minute.
00:03:03
Speaker
That's a game changer. Now, if you're a higher volume photographer, you may be ready for a studio management software system um that does this actually on automate. And I use HoneyBook for all of my automations for like out automatic emails. However, you do not need to do that in the beginning.
00:03:19
Speaker
You can simply for free make your own templates and copy and paste. This is going to change your life. Imagine if you could turn something that took 10 minutes into one minute or 15 minutes into one minute or even 15 minutes into five. You get the idea.
Batch Work and Productivity Strategies
00:03:35
Speaker
Okay, number two, create a batch work schedule for yourself. So being a photographer is the best job in the world. I have been doing it for 13 years. I believe this to be true.
00:03:47
Speaker
However, it is still a job. And so I want you to start treating it as such. Batch working was a huge game changer for me. I have ADHD and I know it will be for you as well. so what this means is that you dedicate certain days of the week for certain tasks and you don't move on to any other tasks until that designated focused task is done so let me explain on mondays for example are my um edit days my family photo edit days and my family and i don't do my own editing anymore so on mondays i upload all of the photos i call and i send to the editor
00:04:20
Speaker
so that's i won't do anything else until that's done on tuesdays i schedule social media content on wednesdays i schedule website and blog content etc etc see what i mean there's no reason that you should be ping-ponging all over the place when i sit down to do a task another thing that i do when i'm batch working is i put my phone on silent and i get to work Not enough time is actually the oldest excuse in the book.
00:04:44
Speaker
It's a limiting belief. Batch working is the perfect way to keep yourself accountable.
Editing Systems and Outsourcing
00:04:49
Speaker
and Okay, number three, create an efficient editing system or consider outsourcing your editing.
00:04:56
Speaker
Editing is probably one of the biggest time sucks of being a photographer and it's normal for it to take time to improve your skills and if you're on that part of your if you're in that part of your journey then you're going to have to prioritize time-saving techniques.
00:05:10
Speaker
You're never going to be profitable if you're spending hours upon hours editing each session. um If you're finding yourself, so let's think about this for a second. If you're finding yourself correcting a lot of mistakes that you're making in camera, like focus, exposure, or composition, I want you to back up for a second.
00:05:25
Speaker
Instead of thinking about your editing, take the time that you need to improve those skills. And it might be a lighting issue, so work on that. But if it's just editing and editing is just the bane of your existence, it's taking you forever, learn how to batch or sync edit so that you can edit many images at once.
00:05:43
Speaker
Trust me, your client is not zooming in to check and see if everyone's eyes are tack sharp or to see if that stray hair has been taken from their face. I promise. Spot editing is generally a waste of time. Now, if you're listening to this and you're a busy photo a photographer, and if you have more than two weeks of photo shoots backlogged for editing, it's time to consider outsourcing.
00:06:04
Speaker
I've been outsourcing my editing for years. I use the image salon. um The other thing that people are doing these days with a lot of success is using AI for editing. so You do need to create efficient editing systems or consider outsourcing if you are busy.
Social Media Scheduling
00:06:18
Speaker
My fourth time saving tip is going to be utilize a scheduling tool for all social media content and all blog content. You do have to create content to market for your business. That's part of being a photographer is marketing your business.
00:06:32
Speaker
Marketing just means sharing about your business. Posting in real time on social media and your blog is such a waste of time, like the biggest waste of time ever. If you're opening up your app and watching that little cursor blink at you and looking for a photo in your photos, oh my god, you already just, it's stressing me out thinking about you doing that.
00:06:49
Speaker
So it makes it really hard also to stay consistent and to continue with your marketing strategy if you're posting in real time. So remember I was talking about batch working? Yeah. So take one day a week to schedule all of your social media content and another day of the week to schedule your blog content. Because if you've been listening to all of this, all of these series, I'm telling you, don't rely just on social media. You need to have good content on your website and blog.
00:07:13
Speaker
Batch work schedule. If you don't market your business, meaning simply sharing about your business, you will not have a business. So you do need to have a marketing strategy. You have to be sharing about your business.
00:07:24
Speaker
And one of the main reasons that people don't is they'll claim that they don't have time. Well, I'm telling you, scheduling is going to change your life.
Household Help and Focused Business Hours
00:07:31
Speaker
I use later.com for scheduling. My final tip is going to be about getting the household help that you deserve and taking your business seriously.
00:07:40
Speaker
Seriously. Take it seriously. this So I'm just going to say something, a blanket system a blanket thing, a black and white thing. I know this isn't true for all men, but most men would never say, I'm just going to work during nap time.
00:07:54
Speaker
You started this business because it means something to you. So take it seriously. Whether that means asking your household partner to take over the household or childcare duties on certain days of the week or for a few hours in the on a Saturday morning, whatever it means.
00:08:09
Speaker
It might mean that it's time to pay a babysitter for maybe two hours a day, two days a week, something like that. It can start really small. Or maybe it means getting a housekeeper to come a few times a month to help with the load at home.
00:08:25
Speaker
You deserve that. If you have a full-time job while also running your photography business, which a lot of people do in the beginning, set aside focused hours for your business.
00:08:37
Speaker
Make sure that you're getting the household help that you need in order to make this a reality because this dream deserves to be made into reality.
Conclusion and Motivation
00:08:45
Speaker
All right, you got this.
00:08:48
Speaker
These are some time-saving tips. Don't feel overwhelmed. Let's stay on top of it. I want to see you succeed.