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Episode 233 - Tips for a Well-Crafted Timeline
368 Plays3 months ago
Today's guest is Nata Salvatori, founder and CEO of Timeline Pro and multiple photography businesses. Today she joins us to chat all about timelines and her journey of creating Timeline Pro. If you're in the wedding industry, you'll want to give this episode a listen.
Links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check ’em out at https://daveyandkrista.com/tips-well-crafted-timeline-btb233/. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
Preparation and Planning Insights
00:00:00
Speaker
Good preparation, taking the lead, and building a good, solid timeline that has some cushion time for you is probably one of the few of the main things that I see people missing out there. You're listening to The Brans That Book Show, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want practical tips and strategies to build engaging brands and craft high-converting websites.
Meet the Hosts: Davey and Krista
00:00:22
Speaker
We're your hosts, Davey and Krista, co-founders of a brand and website design agency specializing in visual brand design and show it websites. You're listening to The Brands of Book Show.
Guest Introduction: Nada Salvatore
00:00:34
Speaker
Today's guest is Nada Salvatore, founder and CEO of Timeline Pro and multiple photography businesses. Today, she joins us to chat all about timelines and her journey creating Timeline Pro. We chat about common timeline mistakes, tips for crafting better timelines, and how timelines can improve the client experience. If you're in the wedding industry, you'll want to listen to this episode. As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check them out at DavianCresta.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts. Now, on to the episode. Nada, we met at the reset conference this past spring, conference that we haven't been to for
00:01:15
Speaker
A few years now, but was so much fun to be back at. Really enjoyed getting to know you and your team. You were there representing Timeline Pro, which is one of your few different companies. Yes.
Nada's Career Journey
00:01:26
Speaker
But for those who aren't familiar with you, I'd love for you to just take some time to introduce yourself. Tell us the story of how you got to Timeline Pro, because I know there are stops along the way. Awesome. Was this a five-hour podcast, right? Yeah, that's right. That's right. We'll go into tomorrow if we have to. Yes, thank you so much for having me. First of all, I appreciate it. It was definitely an intimate conference. I like the more intimate settings of conferences when there's not like just hundreds and hundreds of people, you don't get to connect. So that was definitely fun. So I am originally from Brazil, which is why you're going to hear an accent as I speak. Came to the US under a volleyball scholarship to play college, play some volleyball, went to physical therapy school. So I have my doctorate in physical therapy.
00:02:12
Speaker
In our practice, PT for about 10 years or so. And then, you know, have kids this decided needed something a little bit different from a availability standpoint to spend more time with the kids. And it just wasn't getting the same fulfillment that I did in the beginning with some changes in the company and and all that. so These options came to my mind of like what would I do if I wasn't a PT anymore in in my options or at the time I could go to medical school and become a surgeon, which was something I was always interested in. I had a lot of fun with cadaver labs and stuff like that.
00:02:50
Speaker
or I would do some interior designing or photography. So those were kind of the things that I wanted to explore a little bit more. Photography was the easiest way to start with and that's kind of how my career into photography
Creating Timeline Pro
00:03:03
Speaker
started. I now have two photo and video companies that serve wedding clients and that led to the creation of the app, Timeline Pro. which is a timeline in shotless builder for wedding photographers and wedding planners.
00:03:21
Speaker
you know From that came some coaching. yeah I was always coaching and mentoring students as a PT. I used to train therapists. I taught at university level. So you know teaching is part of me. It's one of the things I absolutely love to do. So you know coaching came into the picture and
Dual Company Strategy in the Wedding Industry
00:03:39
Speaker
so on. So that's a little bit of a very short version of my story. Yeah, yeah. Well, tell us a but little bit about the photo and video company. So is that two photo and two video companies or a photo and a video company? Yeah, I have two that offer photo and video. So what I did is for the first few years, I had one company and that was very quickly went into a high price point company. So I offer more on the luxury brand service to wedding clients.
00:04:07
Speaker
and Very often, I realized you know so some people couldn't afford my services, but they really love what I was offering and the quality of service. and They would go on and book somebody else. They ended up coming back to me and asking them to redo their portraits and just recreate part of their weddings because they were not satisfied with what they got what they were able to pay for. so I created this second company that is at a lower price point. That is still my team out there serving my clients. They just have a different experience than my clients on the luxury end. But it created an opportunity for people to still have good quality photos if they couldn't afford working with me in my main company.
00:04:50
Speaker
That's a really interesting way to approach it, right? Because I think a lot of people struggle with that. I think one, it's an interesting way to scale your business when you can't scale yourself, right? yeah So you get to stay connected with your luxury level photography business, so while at the same time training team members who can then take on more weddings than you would be able to take on in a given year. And you're hitting a part of the market that still has a need for good wedding photos. Yeah, it just broke my heart to see these people really wanting to work together and just not being able to afford it. So you why not create an opportunity for them to still have great memories? We're still working together. Obviously, I'm not the one photographing their wedding, but they're getting my team, which is a wonderful extension of my work. And they have been very really well trained. I'm very picky. So I feel 100% confident they're still getting good quality work. When did you introduce video? Was that something you introduced at the very beginning?
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, video was the first thing I added to my company before I even started growing
Timeline Pro Development Challenges
00:05:49
Speaker
a team. So again, very I'm very good at on data and feedback. So realized quickly that, one, people were interested in video and were looking for options outside of my company because I didn't offer that. Two, I was having to work with people that did not know how to work well together, which is very unfortunate in the photo and video world that happens a lot. but So why not train my own team and offer something that we can do together? So that was the first thing I actually probably a year and a half after I launched my business, I added video. So that was my first teammate, videographer, and then it slowly started adding more photographers and videographers to the team.
00:06:30
Speaker
Yeah. and Another way to increase, you know, the value of each wedding, right? I mean, not only from an experience perspective and having a little experience in the wedding industry myself, you know, like it is true. Sometimes vendors don't get along and it creates for, you know, maybe a less than ideal experience, even if it's not for the couple, you know, like you want all your vendors performing at their best. So, but then for you as a business as well, just being able to also offer an additional service means typically more revenue too. yeah my name People want convenience. you know when they When you can be the one-stop shop for everything and they don't have to go figure all this out with somebody else, it's just it's easy. You're offering a service that's just more encompassing and and making things easier for them.
00:07:14
Speaker
Yeah, awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about deciding to start Timeline Pro. You know, i I now have a bit of experience in the SaaS world myself. And, you know, I mean, starting a SaaS business is different than anything else that I've done because there's this technology component, right? Yeah. So, you know, we'd love to hear about what prompted you to start that and what your experiences looked like as
Common Mistakes in Wedding Timelines
00:07:36
Speaker
well. Yeah, so as a wedding photographer, you know, having to have a timeline is something that is important to me. I'm very flexible and adaptable and on the wedding day, but I feel like there needs to be something to deviate from, right? So having that initial timeline to to guide the day is really helpful. And first, you know, when you start to kind of rely on wedding planners to put that together, then you're going to start running into their clients that don't have them.
00:08:02
Speaker
right? So like who is responsible for kind of moving the day along and in dictating what's going to happen. So it was either printing something like putting something together on an Excel spreadsheet or something and printing it and bringing it with me, which doesn't really match with my brand, right? So this luxury brand, I'm nicely dressed on the wedding day and then I have this three or four pages of timelines folded into my pocket and like trying to pull it out and check on it all the time and then you put it down on a room somewhere where you doing the getting ready photos and you walked away and you went to the ceremony space and now you lost your timeline and maybe you made some notes in there about like
00:08:46
Speaker
Maybe the parents of the bride don't get along, they're divorced and they don't want to take pictures together and just stuff that other people don't need to be seeing. So you're just constantly running over these little logistical things that I'm always looking for ways to improve and be efficient with what I do in general.
Benefits and Features of Timeline Pro
00:09:04
Speaker
And you know I started just taking pictures, like creating some template in Canva somewhere and taking a picture of it. And then I'll share that with other vendors. And they're like, oh, this looks really nice. like are you Are you going to sell this template? And I'm like, no, but I actually want to make it an app. you know Put it together so people can have it on their phones. We have our phones with us all the time. We're always checking the time.
00:09:28
Speaker
might as well just have your timeline in there. So I talked to a few people that had created apps and realized very quickly and that one, it cost a ridiculous amount of money to put an app together. And two, the amount of work and frustration and that you hear from people that i create apps with having to communicate with maybe somebody overseas or just the timeframe of things not getting done. and it was a lot of it so just the cost itself it scared me away very quickly. I mean I kind of sat on this idea for a couple of years and actually didn't you know it's like I didn't have the money to even think about that and it wasn't until I was having a conversation with somebody and they mentioned having their developing team somewhere else that I realized I was like wait a minute
00:10:19
Speaker
I'm from Brazil. I can speak Portuguese. I bet I can find some really good app developer in my country. And at that time, the money exchange, I think it was like a five to one ratio. So $1 was equivalent to $500 money. So I was like, maybe I can afford it. Let me investigate. And that's basically how we came up with being able to afford putting an app together and what the idea came from. Yeah, awesome. you know How long did it take to get the initial concept into development? That wasn't very long because I kind of already had it all in my mind because of working putting things together for a while. and Actually, my dad was here visiting for a couple weeks and we sat down and put together the logistics of the calculations for the timeline, everything on an Excel spreadsheet, obviously knowing that that's not what they're going to be using, but just like try to think through the process of
00:11:14
Speaker
building a timeline and kind of spreading the time around all the steps and everything. So I actually used a lot of those documents to give to them as reference of what I wanted. So that first initial step, it was probably, I don't see three to four months. mega yeah It wasn't that bad, but then obviously the saga goes on after that. Sure. Well, you know, maybe you can talk about some common timeline mistakes that you see wedding professionals make. We have a lot of wedding professionals that listen to the podcast. So maybe you could just chat through some of the pain points people experience when it comes to wedding timelines.
00:11:49
Speaker
Yeah, so and one of the things that I mentioned earlier is just having to, leaving things behind, like having that piece of paper that maybe you forget to print or I forget to bring with you, you print it instead at your desk. And then, you know, not taking charge. I think taking the lead on the timeline, it should be something that we should be doing because we're so attached to you know, lighting and the opportunity of being able to go outside and take pictures of the decent lighting or things like that. Like we should be the ones taking charge on creating this timeline. In my opinion, I create my timeline six months ahead of time. And I send that to the planner and everybody. So my timeline becomes the anchor point for everything else that gets created afterwards. And now I'm not having to try to fight for time.
00:12:37
Speaker
and fight for space to take my pictures. So I think number one is just maybe not taking the lead in being the experts on that timeline that obviously is encompassing the things that are related to photography. I am not dictating the order of the reception and when the cake is going to be cut and all that kind of stuff because I'm in there inside and it doesn't matter to me because lighting is now all the same. But everything that comes before that, it affects me and my ability to capture the day properly. So I feel like we need to be taking the lead a little bit more often. The second thing is not building enough cushion time in your timeline. So not giving yourself a good amount of cushion that if something goes wrong,
00:13:20
Speaker
If hair and makeup is delayed, if somebody had to go get something that they forgot that you're now scrambling and you're missing opportunities to take pictures. So have a good amount of cushion building to the timelines that I create. And we kind of put that into the program already to help people. So that's another one that I see. And then just not having a good conversation with your clients, like I do a 30 day call with my clients where we go over the timeline, I make specific notes, and I make sure that I'm 100% aware of everything that's gonna happen. It could potentially affect a job that I have to do that day. So I wanna know about family dynamics. I wanna know about, you is there any specific events that's gonna happen during the ceremony that is different that maybe you need to be mindful of capturing from a different angle.
00:14:09
Speaker
You know, just all kind of little things that people just throw at you on the wedding day if you don't ask and then you can throw you off track with your timeline. So I think good preparation, taking the lead in building a good solid timeline that has some cushion time for you it is probably one of the few of the main things that I see people missing out there. Yeah. Also, what are some of your favorite aspects of the Timeline Pro app? Oh, there's a lot of good stuff in there. So number one is if you have never created a timeline before, let's say you're a beginner photographer, you can input the information in there about your date and you'll already spit out a timeline for you that is pre-made just based on the information that you entered about how long you're going to be working, when is the ceremony, when does the reception starts and ends and that kind of stuff. so
00:14:55
Speaker
That alone is a big help because it creates a timeline for you. If you're a seasoned photographer and you have your way that you like doing things, the other great thing is 100% customizable. So you can customize all the steps of the timeline. You can customize the times that it puts there for you. So 100% can change the order of things and how you want your timeline to go. So once you create your own template, you can just continue to duplicate that. afterwards and it's super easy to use. It has a shot list pre-built in there for you. So if you're, and again, a newer photographer or somebody who likes to follow a list, you have the ability to check that off as you go. On the annual plan that we have, you can actually customize it with your brand colors, which is really nice. It gives, again, the opportunity of offering that luxury service kind of individualized
00:15:48
Speaker
attention to your client by sharing something that's part of your brand. And that's just a few of the things that are out there. There's a notes section for you or eyes only. You can share your timeline with your clients and they don't need to create an account for anything. It's just a link that they click on it and they can see the timeline. So super easy to use. Yeah. I'm guessing you have your teams using the app. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Good deal. Are there specific ways that timeline pro can help other wedding pros sort of level up their experience? Also interested if it's like a collaborative thing, right? Like if wedding planners and photographers can coordinate on the timeline using it.
00:16:28
Speaker
At this point, they can be sharing that information. So the good thing is it keeps all the communication about the timeline within the app. So you no longer have emails back and forth that you have to go find. So if I send a timeline to you as my client in your room and you decide, you're like, Oh, actually, The ceremony is at 5.30 and not 5. There's a comment box in there that you can write a comment on and send it back to me. It comes back into the app as an alert. so That can be used between you and the client. That can be used between you and another vendor. so You can get just feedback and conversation back and forth about the timeline within the app. There decreases a lot of the back and forth in communication being in two or three different places.
00:17:10
Speaker
You can share that timeline with other wedding vendors, which I think is great. And again, it builds your reputation as a wedding vendor. You can share that with other ones. Like as a planner, you can share that with other vendors. You can share that with your clients. Everybody's on the same page.
Future Enhancements for Timeline Pro
00:17:27
Speaker
And I always tell people, like, think about the opportunity that you're getting out there. Like you share this timeline with your bride in Groom and they move on and share that with their bridal party, their wedding party. So. you know you have clients within clients in that situation. You're already creating a whole, just an impression on those people that you're very professional and you have things organized and they're more likely to think of you whenever their time to get married comes around. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Do you have any plans on expanding out beyond timelines or is it timelines where you're focused?
00:18:03
Speaker
Yeah, so I have a few things that I would like to do with it. One would be create a better dynamic for teams, right? So having a team and being able to have just like you have in a lot of the things out there where you can add members to your account. So having different member levels so people can modify the same timeline if they're in the same team and things like that is one of the main things I would like to implement in the future. And then I also like to have the ability to save some photos potentially within the app for people to use as reference, kind of having a little gallery of where you can go to get some inspiration if you need to on the wedding day. Those are the two main things that I have in mind for the future. Yeah, awesome. Do you feel like it's been really helpful for you and your team to be using?
00:18:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, ive obviously you've been the one using the longest. I love it. I think it makes it so efficient and professional. I like the way it helps me represent my whole company to the rest of the industry. And it just, you know, it keeps you organized and efficient and puts everybody on the same page, which is sometimes hard to do in the wedding day between your couple and all their wedding party and parents and everybody, like making sure that you have an easy timeline that is on people's phones and like so easy to follow.
Managing Wedding Days with Timeline Pro
00:19:22
Speaker
Everybody's going to have their phone that day you know versus, you know did dad mom and dad check their email and are they going to be able to pull it out in the middle of the wedding? so It's just so much easier and convenient.
00:19:33
Speaker
Yeah, maybe one thing I should ask is about how you keep things on track during the wedding day. I mean, I think that's something that people struggle with. I mean, it's one thing to put together the timeline, right? But then it's other another thing to like keep things moving along. What tips do you have for people attempting to do that? Yeah, from the actual app standpoint, we have a swipe function into where you can swipe a step when it's done. So your eyes immediately know where the next step is for the timeline for the wedding day, which is really cool. From a logistics standpoint, I think, again, having that on the tip of your fingers, being able to refer back to and say, okay, we have 15 more minutes until the next thing that we need to be focusing on, or if something is behind,
00:20:15
Speaker
You know that there's a cushion building there and you can be calming down your couple and telling them it's okay. I know we're a little behind in the timeline, but I actually have some cushion time built in there. And it's going to be okay, like we're going to stay on track. So again, having that resource available to everybody, it just Decreases a lot of that stress of people not being ready or they don't know what time they need to get ready and they're asking the bride and groom and they're trying to focus on getting ready themselves so it's just decreases a lot of that stress that goes on in the wedding day in general. Yeah yeah amazing well is there anything else I should be asking to recover everything.
00:20:55
Speaker
i think we covered everything we have right now you can actually download the app for free and play with it for 10 days and create a timeline see how you feel about it and then you can move to either a monthly plan or annual plan and obviously they have different
Episode Conclusion
00:21:10
Speaker
perks in each one of the plans in there but it's something that We've had people use it as portrait photographers, as newborn photographers, family photographers, not just within the wedding industry. So it kind of got expended outside of our initial intent because people saw the potential of using that and and providing their clients with a great experience. Yeah, that's amazing. So where can they go to download the app or start using it?
00:21:34
Speaker
Now, so the app is on both the App Store and the Google App Store, so super easy to find. You can just search Timeline Pro. We do have a website where you can go and check out all the features and in download it from there. It's timelineproapp.com. Awesome. Well, thank you, Nada. Really appreciate your time. And yeah, if you are listening, all those links will be in the show notes for you to access, and we'll make sure that we follow up if anybody has any questions. and Thank you so much for having me. It was a joy. Thanks for tuning in to the Brands of Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review on Apple Podcast, and sharing this episode with others. For show notes and other resources, head on over to DaveyandChrista.com.