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Ep. 139 - TIME is your biggest bottle-neck as a solopreneur - Emily 17hats
94 Plays6 months ago
Happy Woo Wednesdays!
Happy Woo Wednesdays! Emily reminds us not to re-invent the wheel as you setup your small business solution! Download 17hats Marketplace items so you can have more time, professionalism, creativity, scalability, and consistency within your business.
Emily was born and raised in Tulsa, OK where she established a successful wedding and portrait studio. After falling in love with educating other small business owners, she joined the 17hats team full time to manage the NEW 17hats Marketplace.
Hot Topic:
TIME is your biggest bottle-neck as a solopreneur.
17hats Marketplace - What is the 17hats Marketplace? It's a connection point for buyers and sellers of 17hats templates. Marketplace buyers have the opportunity to purchase tried and true templates from industry leaders.
- Who is buying? New 17hats members looking for turnkey setup, existing members looking to use some untapped features within 17hats, and existing members who want insight into other members processes.
- Installing these items are SO EASY. After purchase, they're already loaded into your 17hats account.
- After you purchase items, you get to add your own secret sauce, and make the templates you own.
Favorite sales technique : How do you get a HECK YES from your dream clients?
Information is EMPOWERMENT! When people know there are solutions already out there, it changes the way they see setup within a new platform. Educate, educate, educate!
Connect with Carissa
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Transcript
Introduction & Lead Generation Offer
00:00:00
Speaker
Happy Woo Wednesdays! If your leads are down and you need a new brand message, homepage of your website, marketing material to get on the preferred venue vendor list, and a sales presentation to close on the call, DM me the word COACHING. I will send you a 20-minute video on how to get 10-15 quality leads a month without Facebook ads and Facebook groups.
00:00:25
Speaker
So today is another 17 hats special with Emily. She has such a vibrant personality. She also has six kids and runs a photography studio. So the saving time hacks are everything to her. Everything.
Exploring 17 Hats for Wedding Pros
00:00:40
Speaker
We are talking about automation again, but more focused on the new marketplace when you sign up for 17 hats. You can purchase automations from lead wedding pros and it's literally like business in a box for super affordable prices. Use my promo code HECKYAS to get 50% the entire year. Enjoy!
00:01:06
Speaker
Welcome to Get a Heck Yes with Carissa Wu. I'm your host, Carissa, and I've been a Los Angeles wedding photographer for over a decade. I've traveled the world, built my team, and seen it all. I now coach wedding photographers hit 10K a month and build a thriving business. In this podcast, we are going to deep dive into how top wedding creatives get that heck yes from their dream clients. We are not holding back on the struggles of the business and how to push through the noise. Some healthy hustle, mindset shifts, up-leveling your money story,
00:01:34
Speaker
time-packed because I'm a mom of two, a little bit of woo-woo, and most importantly, self-love and confidence are just a few of the many things we will talk about. I want to give you a genuine thank you for following along my journey. I hope to inspire you every Woo Wednesday so that you say heck yes to listening to this podcast. See you guys soon!
00:01:57
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Get a Heck Yes with me, your girl, Carissa Wu. I have Emily from Seventeen Hats in the Get a Heck Yes house.
Emily's Background & Career Shift
00:02:06
Speaker
I had Amanda Rae last week, and this week is Emily. So all things Seventeen Hats. Emily was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where there's a tornado watch right now. Be careful. And she established a successful wedding and portrait studio. We have a lot in common.
00:02:23
Speaker
After falling in love with educating other small businesses, she joined the 17 Hats team full time to manage a new 17 Hats marketplace. We're going to talk all about that later, but welcome, Emily. Hey, Krista. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah. If you guys are just listening, not watching, she's wearing a green blazer with a
00:02:47
Speaker
make it happen, 17 hat shirt. So she's completely on brand and I'm on brand with my pink mic and my pink shirt. So we know what's up. We do. And we know that branding matters, right?
00:02:58
Speaker
We do, we do. I made you guys a little Canva graphic and I put it in the 17 hats colors for you guys to share. I love it. Thank you. Yeah, but I just wanted to know more about you as a person, not as like a 17 hats person, but like what you were like as a kid growing up and just about your background. Yeah.
00:03:22
Speaker
I know this is going to be really shocking to you, but as a child, I was just as energetic as I am now. I was always the kid who would talk to anyone. I think I had to move desks very frequently because I would just talk to the people that I was next to, but I'm just such a big person. I'm big on cultivating relationships, right? I feel like there's so much value in that.
00:03:48
Speaker
And I truly believe that underneath it all, we could be friends with absolutely anyone. We can put so many things aside and be friends with anyone you come in contact with. And I feel like I'm still like that as an adult now. I gravitate to people like you because I was more like the not talker. So I would be like attached at your hip like you would be my voice box growing up. Okay, so there's like a funny story around that. My background before I was a wedding photographer, I was an accounting and public accounting and
00:04:18
Speaker
Before you go to a certain point in the accounting program at the university that I attended, you had to take a gateway exam. And the girl I sat next to during this gateway exam was very much like you, just very reserved. And I was just chatting her ear off. And to this day, we are best friends. That's so funny.
00:04:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's like the dynamic of like yin yang, like I feed off of people's energy. So I want like someone more chatty that brings me like out of my shell. This is gonna be a great podcast. Totally. Okay, you're bringing the energy. Let's talk about you like in high school or college, what you're into, I'm assuming accounting, but anything you want to share with us?
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah, so I am a very numbers oriented person. I love analytics. I love analyzing people. I love analyzing numbers. I just like diving deep into things. And so whenever I went to college, I went to a state university, I knew that I wanted to do something with numbers. And so I went into the school of accounting.
00:05:28
Speaker
I got a degree there. I actually got a dual degree in business management and human resources because I really liked the people side of things as well. And then I really dove into public accounting and I worked for a big four company, spent many a busy season in a cubicle. And there came a point that I had some frank conversations with myself and with my family.
00:05:54
Speaker
and I just realized that a little bit of me was dying inside of a cubicle every day. I tried all the hacks, right? I don't know, have you guys ever heard of happy lights? Have you heard of a happy light, Carissa? Happy light? Happy light that you like put on your desk. It's supposed to emulate like window light and it's supposed to make you happy if you work in a cubicle. Oh my God, that's so sad. Yeah, it is so sad. So like I was trying all of these things
00:06:20
Speaker
And I think I just had this moment where I realized that I was not meant to work at a desk in a cubicle for all of my life. And so I remember making the phone call to my husband who was going to vet school at the time.
Transition to Photography
00:06:35
Speaker
And I called him and I said, Hey, I think I'm going to leave public accounting and go into wedding photography full time. And at the time I was paying for
00:06:46
Speaker
like to go to college, right? So kind of a bold move. And he was like, well, maybe you shouldn't, maybe we should talk about this. I was like, well, well, actually I already put in my two weeks, I'm ready to go into this. And it was so great. And I had a beautiful conversation with my partner and I said, I think I just have too much personality to be in a cube. And he agreed. He was like, you do, you just really do.
00:07:15
Speaker
So it was a beautiful segue for us to become small business owners. And there's so much joy in owning a small business, right? Yeah, what year was that? This was 2012. 2012. Okay, so I'm thinking, okay, so 2012, what sparked you to jump into that like so boldly? Were you on like
00:07:40
Speaker
Was Instagram even around or like who inspired you? I actually don't even, I, I don't think we had an Instagram account. So we just, at the time we had a couple of small kids and we had a nice camera. And again, I love the people side of things. I love serving people. Um, so it was just a very natural segue. It was a resource I already had, right? I already had this camera. Um, and so it was just something that we tapped into and then we went down the whole rabbit hole. Chris, do you remember creative live?
00:08:11
Speaker
I remember that I remember like Sue Brice and the other star on it and like one of those top editors I forgot their name. So we went down that whole rabbit hole and I remember we would watch creative live videos all the time.
00:08:30
Speaker
Um, like any dead time we'd be like, okay, let's pull up our next creative live video. And that is really how we built ourselves a small business center. It was like, that was really our education source that we just could not get enough of at the very beginning. Um, and that helped us get the, um, I'm going to say experience, right? But it was more just the education that helped us get the experience. Um, so that was a really fun process. Wait, so you're like, okay, hubby, um, we're,
00:08:57
Speaker
I'm quitting my accounting job. You're coming on board with me. And we have a couple of kids in the mix. Exactly. And you know, the plot twist of that is that he actually joined me, he left that school and joined me on the photography side of things. And we often laugh at the idea of we're like,
00:09:16
Speaker
I'm sure our parents were thinking that we had lost our minds. Totally. You have this young married couple. One is a public accountant, and one is going to vet school, and wow, what a dynamic duo they're about to be. And then they just go crazy and become photographers. That's crazy. I was in advertising, and I would be so sad when daylight savings would come out.
00:09:44
Speaker
like, sundown at five. And I'm like, I literally didn't even see sunlight and my friends are like at the beach because we're like early 20s. And I'm like, what the hell am I doing with my life is so sad. But you know, there's some people who being in a cubicle and being able to hyper focus with no one around them, that's life giving to some people. But there's just some people that that is not life giving to and that I was one of them. And it sounds like you are one of those people as well.
00:10:12
Speaker
Oh my god. So what was your style for photography? Was it more like the darker moody or like the light and airy or timeless? Yeah, so we did like this really great timeless look. And we love bold colors. External light was really our specialty in our audience. Just crafting those really neat artistic photos using external light. That was that was where we got our joy on the photography side of things from the artistic side, right? Like,
00:10:42
Speaker
When you're a photographer, I feel like there are two, maybe three great ways to pull life out of a photo. One is to serve the people and one is to serve yourself artistically. And the people side, obviously that filled my cup every single day, but artistically my cup was filled whenever we could craft those super fun artistic images. Yeah, I love that. I never got into it.
00:11:08
Speaker
I'm like, wow, it's like just so impressive the things that you guys could do with off-camera flash. Okay, so let's talk about transition. I guess, tell me a little bit more about your photography life.
Managing Family & Business
00:11:20
Speaker
Like what was the biggest struggle? How did you overcome it? What was it like being a wedding photographer and studio owner?
00:11:28
Speaker
Absolutely. I love this. So, um, a little bit more about me. I actually have six children that are between the ages of four and 14. So to me, my issue was always having time, finding time, and we're going to like go over this the entire podcast. I'm not about to like, you know, spill the sauce now, but, um, part of my struggle was always
00:11:54
Speaker
delegating my time in a way that I felt everyone was being served best, right? Not only myself, but where my clients served best, where my kids served best, was my husband served best. I mean, my parents, right? Like my parents are both still living. They want to see their daughter every now and then. So it's just finding that time. My mom's calling me like three times right now.
00:12:17
Speaker
And again, I'm from Oklahoma. Family really, really, really matters, especially, you know, I think now that I have kids, it's really easy to stick to my circle, right? Like my husband and my kids, but it's bigger than that. It's also my siblings and her kids and my mother. So family was really important. And so I was always just trying to figure out how can I
00:12:40
Speaker
be the best person I can be to everyone, including myself, right? So that was always just a really big struggle. And I have a planner, I'm an old school planner, where I would write down like my big three items to do every day. And what I loved is those three items, it was a mix, right? Sometimes my big three items would be taking one of my kiddos on a field trip. Sometimes my big three item would be, you know, reveal celebration at our studio with a client.
00:13:11
Speaker
or getting a gallery out or something along those lines. But it was always, there's this mix, right? Business, when you're a small business owner, it overlaps and just merges like a puzzle piece with your family and the rest of your life. So you have to really be able to make a good fit because that's your life now, right? As a small business owner, it is permanently part of your identity.
00:13:33
Speaker
Yeah, I know when they would tell me, oh, you know, taxes, use the personal and the business, I'm like, my business is my personal, my personal, my business, you know, like everything is the same.
00:13:45
Speaker
Well, and think about it, right? You run into Target and you get some things. You're like, oh, I need this for the kids, right? The kids need school supplies. Then look at this cute boss for me. And also, hey, this studio could use this piece. You know, it's just, it's just part of who you are. So that was always really a difficult thing for me was trying to figure out the time and how I can allocate myself across the board.
00:14:04
Speaker
Um, so that was a big one. And that we also had a brick and mortar studio. Um, and that was so great because I was able to pull away and to go work somewhere outside of my home. And it allowed me to have a little bit more of a boundary between my, my work life and a personal life. Um, and I really enjoyed that, but of course, you know, having a brick and mortar, there are, there are some complications, not complications, but, um, Was it, um, did you shoot family or Bourgeois or everything?
00:14:34
Speaker
Yeah, so the studio was mainly for headshots and for consultations. And so what I found in the wedding photography world, there was so much value in having your own space. And so we did IPS in person sales, which I know is a hot topic with a lot of wedding portrait photographers, but all that to say that we wanted our clients to leave with product in hand. And what better way for your clients to
00:15:01
Speaker
visualize their product than to see product itself, right? So we felt like we had a home field advantage whenever we were able to bring our clients and our prospective clients into the studio to see those sorts of things. And we loved that. It was a great thing for us. But again, overhead, there's just a lot to it, right?
00:15:23
Speaker
Totally. I'm just trying to wrap my head around your life, but how old are all your kids? I'm still trying to wrap my head around my life. We could be here a very long time. I know. I'm like, how does she do it?
00:15:39
Speaker
Pardon this short interruption, but guess what? I have a new program. It's for all wedding professionals. It's called The Triple Threat. We redo your brand messaging, the homepage of your website. Part two is we do all your marketing.
00:15:56
Speaker
create a beautiful brochure so you could start getting on Prefer venue vendor list and we do all your sales so we actually make you a sales presentation leading your client to the heck yes so you get paid. I have a free 20 minute demo training. It's only 20 minutes. Go to my Instagram at Carissa Woo.
00:16:19
Speaker
and DM me the word DEMO. I will send it right over. It's how to get 10 to 15 quality leads in your inbox per month. Enjoy, guys. Krista Wu is a LA-based wedding photographer who's actually turning business coach. She helped me grow and change, and I'm so proud to call you coach.
00:16:42
Speaker
tell us how you're feeling. Like, I want to just know a little bit more about your thoughts. Yeah, it's beautiful. And you're, you're awesome. It's beautiful. I'm speechless. I just like the fact that it feels like myself. I can, I feel myself when I see this. Oh, man. Well, you got me pumped and excited for this. Carissa, thank you. My kids are four to 14. So we are officially at the point where everyone is in school. You know, our
00:17:11
Speaker
Our oldest is going to be driving here pretty soon and our youngest is going into kindergarten this year. So it's really a beautiful phase for us. It's just the start of a new chapter. And, um, you know, one of the reasons why I loved wedding photography, sorry, I'm bouncing around here, Chris, but why I loved wedding photography as a profession for so long is that it gave us the flexibility that we needed a desire to be with our kids, right? Like when they are little, I wanted to be with them during the day.
00:17:39
Speaker
I wanted to be able to go to all their field trips and all of these things. But now that they're all in school, it's like I suddenly wanted nights and weekends back. And so it's this beautiful transition, right? It's a chapter. Yeah. This morning, I had a shoot last night, and I forgot to post a podcast. So I woke up at a little bit, maybe 30 minutes earlier, and posted all this stuff to all the things. And I got to be a mom. And if it wasn't my own business,
00:18:09
Speaker
It's not like that. Like you're like in the cubicle, like, is he watching me? You know, like, it's just, it's different. Like it could be, you know, that Starbucks like just posting stuff and that's working. But yeah, so crazy. Okay, so I guess tell me about going to 17 Hats, becoming full time and what it's like working there because I love 17 Hats.
Automation & Business Growth
00:18:34
Speaker
Oh my goodness. I love 17 hats too. And I tell people that one of the reasons why we were able to be so successful and why we were able to grow our portrait and wedding studio to the magnitude that we were able to was because of 17 hats, because of the auditions and this organization.
00:18:52
Speaker
always had a love for helping small businesses, always. I love serving people. Whenever this position opened up, I am telling you it was the dream position for me because I feel like every single bit of myself is fulfilled within this position.
00:19:09
Speaker
The people person, great news, I get to be with people very frequently. The analytical side of things, while we get to do that with marketplace, the small business side of things, and that's what I'm working with is small business owners. So it is truly one of those things where all of the boxes are checked. And I just really fundamentally believe that what the marketplace is doing is just incredible and just a game changer for so many small businesses.
00:19:35
Speaker
It is a dream and you've chatted with Amanda. You know, our fearless CEO is just the best person to work for. She's incredible. I know. I want to work for you guys. Um, what year did you join and how did you find out about the job? So I just had this communication line with Amanda going and she just happened to reach out to me. So I joined in January of this year.
00:20:02
Speaker
which is whenever we launch the Marketplace. So the Marketplace is Amanda's dream child. She has always had this idea and this vision for Marketplace. And so they put it into production, I think late last year, and then launched it in January this year at imaging. So it is fairly new. And we are just so excited for all the things that are coming up with Marketplace.
00:20:24
Speaker
Okay, I'll tell you the listeners what I think marketplaces and you could kind of fill in the holes. So I'm a contributor, but marketplace is where you could buy different things like timelines or questionnaires or email sequences or emails or lead generation.
00:20:41
Speaker
It's just like anything that experienced photographers has thought it was very helpful and crucial to their business and now they're selling it. So for me, I have a really awesome wedding questionnaire that I send out three weeks before the wedding and it really helps me with communication and it goes out automatically and I'm going to be selling that soon. And yeah, you can fill in the gaps if I've missed anything.
00:21:08
Speaker
Yeah, no, that was really great. So I just like to say it's a connection point, right? So you have all of these vetted small business owners. And a lot of them aren't even photographers, right? So you have balloon artists, you have videographers, you have event speakers, you have general business products all on the marketplace. And the marketplace is just that connection point between vetted sellers, who we call partners on the marketplace, and then buyers, right?
00:21:35
Speaker
I know that whenever I think about Seventeen Hats and I think about just the platform itself, it is very robust, right, Chris, that there are so many features that we could say it's a little overwhelming to get set up initially with Seventeen Hats or to even just use all of the features. So the idea is that we take the tried and true templates that other Seventeen Hats members have used
00:22:03
Speaker
and that have been successful for them and now people get to purchase those and they can be successful within the purchaser's business. So it is just that connection point for those two groups and it's been really, really great. We've enjoyed seeing what comes of that.
00:22:18
Speaker
Yeah, I was telling Amanda I was like, before kids I would just geek out and stuff if I was I remember the day that I joined 17 hats and I was at my parents house just sitting down listening to tutorials like this is so great. This is so great texting my my fellow vendor friends. And now you know with only two kids.
00:22:40
Speaker
Um, fraction of you, but I don't have the brain, but it's still very, very seamless and easy. But there's so many different things that I could do. And I even after Amanda's podcast, I'm telling my VA, I'm like, make me a lead generation questionnaire for family and weddings and
00:22:56
Speaker
You know, all the things and I was like, I was like, go, go, go learn it. I'm sure it's easy. Just here's my password. So I'm like, I want to take advantage of all the things that you could take. But let's get into the hot topic. I'm going to say it for myself because I think it's so cool to say. But the hot topic today, friends, is time is your biggest bottleneck.
00:23:18
Speaker
as a solopreneur. So I really don't know what that means. So you could explain. Absolutely. So whenever I think about a bottleneck, I think about like an old school Coke bottle, right? So you have the bottle and then you have the neck.
00:23:34
Speaker
And if you were to remove that bottleneck, if you were to slice off that part of the bottle and you were to tip the Coca-Cola over, it would just splash out, right? But because you have the bottleneck on that Coca-Cola bottle, there is a flow. That bottleneck kind of slows things down, right? The same way for business. A bottleneck is something that prohibits you from being at max capacity and from you just to have, you know, super productivity within your business.
00:24:03
Speaker
And so as a solopreneur, as a small business owner, most of the time that is our constraint. Our constraint is time. And just like we mentioned earlier, you and I divide our time in so many different ways, right? We have administrative tasks. We have the actual client to owner communication. We have, um,
00:24:24
Speaker
children, our families, all of these things. And so the fact that time is our non-renewable resource, it's our biggest asset, it's non-renewable, we have to figure out how to get rid of that bottleneck. And thankfully, 17 hats can take over so much of that. And that is really our hot topic. Time is our bottleneck. We've got to make sure we can flow through. Interesting. I never even heard of that before.
00:24:54
Speaker
I've heard like the bottom one where like the pebbles I get to put in like the main ones like the family and like The the friends and whatever and then everything kind of flows through but this is a good one So I guess take us away with any tips and tricks
00:25:09
Speaker
I'm excited to share with you all about our first Get A Heck Yes sponsor, Seventeen Hats. I've been using this CRM company for over a decade and I've been referring them to all my frienders for all this time. I always know when I'm going to get paid and most importantly, I get paid. So here is a question. What is holding you back? What's keeping you from finding success as a small business person?
00:25:35
Speaker
It's not passion. The fact that you're listening to my podcast shows that you're eager to learn and get better. Know what holds you back is all the chaos of business, paperwork, mailed invoices, and no system to handle at all. That's where Seventeen Hats comes in. Seventeen Hats is a better way to manage your small business
00:25:55
Speaker
It's an all-in-one platform that streamlines everything from lead capture to client communication to clicking your done automated invoices. 17 Hats paves a way for success you deserve.
00:26:08
Speaker
by giving you back hours in your day. Find what success looks like for you with 17 hats. Get started for free at 17hats.com and use my code, heck yes, and it's gonna give you guys 50% off your first annual membership. How amazing is that?
00:26:29
Speaker
So now that you're all organized in 17 hats, I have one more quick commercial, but this is really going to change your life. And it's with Kickstart Accounting. Go to episode 131. Check out the podcast all about how to change your finances.
00:26:45
Speaker
So yeah, ever since the podcast, I signed up for Kickstarter Accounting and wow, so much peace of mind in my finances. So if you are a wedding pro looking to streamline your financial processes and gain clarity on your business financial health, I have the perfect solution for you. Kickstarter Accounting Inc. offers specialized bookkeeping services designed by entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs.
00:27:11
Speaker
Their services are tailored to woman-owned businesses, focusing on providing clear, accurate financial records, allowing you to focus on what you do best, growing your business. I invite you to book a discovery call with Kickstart Accounting. The link is in the show notes. Mention, heck yes. And yeah, they are going to get your finances in order so you can continue to scale and succeed. Back to the show.
00:27:41
Speaker
Absolutely. So the thing is, I'm sure you've heard this from Amanda, 17 hats encourages people to automate, right? Automate what you can. And I think I will speak from experience here. I was hesitant to automate a lot of things because I have a very specific voice. I'm highly energetic. I use a lot of emotion, emojis and
00:28:03
Speaker
Exclamation marks, right? I do all these things. And for the longest time, I thought, no way. I can't automate to the point where people feel like it is actually me on the other side of the computer screen. And that's just false, right? Like we can create templates. We can create so many things to make it sound like us. And it is us, right? Like it's not like we're being inauthentic. It truly is us. We're just putting systems in place to duplicate ourselves. So that is a big thing. But fortunately,
00:28:33
Speaker
the marketplace can take over so many of those steps for us because since time is our bottleneck, the question is, do we actually have time to set in those processes, right? Do we have the time to automate? Do we have the time to create online scheduling, which is a big thing? Do we have time to set up online scheduling so people can schedule appointments themselves based on my availability?
00:29:00
Speaker
That way we're not having to email back and forth, right? And I always call it the ping pong match of online or of scheduling, right? If you're just going.
00:29:09
Speaker
the original way of scheduling through emails. It's something like, are you free this day? Well, I'm not free that day, but are you free this day? Well, I'm not free this day, right? And so you're just going back and forth. And you're like, it wasn't on DM or text or email. It's so much so with online scheduling, right? If you use that platform, it takes away so much of that unfruitful conversation and it's
00:29:34
Speaker
automated, right? Like you tell the system when you're free, it checks your calendar and your client's schedule on that time. So the whole idea is just to automate the heck out of everything you can. Um, I did have to use the word heck, you know, we want to automate the heck out of anything we can. That way your time is freed up to do more important things, right?
00:30:04
Speaker
So are you saying that because last week on Amanda's podcast, or the podcast with Amanda, she was saying to have the lead generation with the five question, five questions on the questionnaire, and then could that automate to the calendar, I mean, to the scheduling link to
00:30:21
Speaker
Absolutely. So it would, there's a flow, right? So I would, depending on how you want someone to come into your business depends on what you would want that workflow to look like. And so the way I would handle situations like that, if someone was asking me that question, I would say, let's sit down, let's map out a process. What do you want that to look like? Do you want them to come in, answer a questionnaire, and then they get sent an email to
00:30:50
Speaker
to schedule using your online scheduling link or do you want to reverse that? Do you want to have them fill out a lead capture form and then you send them a link to online scheduling and then after they book, you send them a questionnaire, right? It's all about what you want that flow to look like and great news. You can totally customize that. So like I mentioned at the very beginning of this podcast, I'm very analytical.
00:31:15
Speaker
I'm a big fan of AB testing, right? So test a group of your clients this way using this process and then test a different group using another process and see which one had better results, which one yielded the results that you were looking for.
00:31:34
Speaker
Yeah, let's talk about like, I want to ask you a question about your photography business. What was your maybe biggest, I'm sure there is many, but like, one of the biggest time packs that you had or, or time savers automation that you did with your process. Yeah. So I actually just wrote a blog about this too, because
00:31:57
Speaker
So well, for starters, online scheduling and workflows are going to be the two biggest time hacks for me within 17
Embracing Automation
00:32:05
Speaker
hats. You can create these workflows where they trigger different steps automatically. Right. So as soon as they answer a questionnaire, they get another email or something along those lines. So just clearing up the communication channel is very great. Yeah. Online scheduling again. So you don't have to do those back and forth appointments because
00:32:24
Speaker
Because we had a brick and mortar, we wanted people to come into the studio, right? We were really big on having people come into the studio, which means there were a lot of appointments to create. And so for us, online scheduling was a huge thing. And we used online scheduling. I'm going to list off just a slew of uses we had for it. For the initial consultation, people used online scheduling to schedule their engagement session. They used online scheduling to schedule
00:32:52
Speaker
their photo day, which is where they come in after their engagement session to see their photos online scheduling. If they wanted to get on a call to go over a timeline online scheduling to come in after their wedding day to see their photos online scheduling. And then whenever their album was delivered for them to come back to the studio to pick up their album.
00:33:17
Speaker
Online scheduling at six different touch points where we did not have to do the ping pong match of online scheduling through email. Totally. And when you do it through email, you could run into a lot of mistakes. Absolutely. And that's why I love it. It's just very clear and they choose their time. So there's no mistake on how I got it.
00:33:45
Speaker
I thought it was at four. Well, no, yeah, exactly. Are you, do you guys have text message capabilities? No, no texts yet. We're talking about it. That is a frequent conversation that we've had.
00:33:59
Speaker
Um, that said, I do have text messaging in part of my workflow that way. Um, it's on me. So it's a step in my workflow. That way I know that I need to send a text message. So it's not automated, but it's a reminder to me to text my clients. If that makes sense.
00:34:16
Speaker
Yeah, interesting. No, I'm just thinking about my past, but I did do a boudoir session with Alyssa Michelle a long time ago. And she was using 17 hats and she had all the automation of like the album viewing and, you know, coming back to the studio and, you know, picking up the album. And I was very impressed. And I think impressing our clients, it means
00:34:46
Speaker
they feel like they got their money's worth or they feel like I didn't know they're like, okay, this, this, this girl's legit. She like puts a lot of time and effort into her business. So, you know, maybe that price I paid, like they're more satisfied. That's what I'm kind of thinking. Absolutely. And I feel like that is just really hitting the nail on the head there because one of the things that we tell people were like, Hey, dig into your client experience.
00:35:13
Speaker
Create yourself as a test client in your 17 hats account and go through that. Do you like the way the emails come in? Do you like your logo at the top? Do you like your banner photo? Are you pleased as a client with your client experience? And that is just something that we cannot forget because even though it serves us, we also need to go on the back end and make sure that it is serving our clients just as well.
00:35:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's sometimes like you have to take that couple hours that may seem tedious to do these things, but it's gonna like, you know, three years, it's gonna fast forward and you'll be like,
00:35:51
Speaker
that three hours just save you all of that time and energy. So I would just suggest like for me being in the business for so long, just kind of sit down and try to learn these workflows and you don't even have to hire BA like try to do it yourself just because it's it's easier to when you see it yourself, understand the system and you guys make it so like seamless and so flawless.
00:36:18
Speaker
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00:36:43
Speaker
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00:36:59
Speaker
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00:37:29
Speaker
www.strategic.com. It's in the show notes. Make sure you use my promo code back to the show as I head to the beat. See ya. Oh, I love that. Well, thanks for saying that. That is totally something that I encourage. Unless you are able to map out your process really well, I feel like it's really great for you to go in as a small business owner and for you to get to know your steps just because I
00:37:56
Speaker
It's great, right? It's great for you to see what your clients see and for you to actually see what your business processes look like. Yeah, it really does. And read your contract too. Have it reviewed by an attorney. We can't miss that one. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, so any any other tips about
00:38:20
Speaker
using Seventeen Markets Place. When are you guys launching again? So the Marketplace is live right now. You can go to marketplace.seventeenhats.com to check out all the items on there. Yeah, it's super great. So as of right now, all of the Marketplace partners who are selling items on the Marketplace are invitation only or they are Seventeen Hats ambassadors. We are hoping to open that up within the next few months to all Seventeen Hats members who want to apply.
00:38:48
Speaker
But it is open. It is ready for download and installation. It is open for viewing. It's good stuff. That's awesome. Oh my God, I'm so excited to be a part of it. Let's talk about action steps today for those that are listening. Just kind of talk to their hearts and maybe tell them what they could do today to just get their business streamlined and automated. Absolutely.
00:39:18
Speaker
Well, I say this as someone who is probably just like everyone else, right? Like kind of afraid to automate. I think deep down, we all know as small business owners that we need to automate, right? Like we understand that we don't have all the time in the world. And if we want to scale, if we want to grow, if we want to maintain boundaries, healthy boundaries between work and personal life, we all know there's a level of automation that needs to happen. And we understand that at the 17 hats, like as a company, we understand that it can be overwhelming to automate.
00:39:46
Speaker
we can understand that it is a big undertaking. And that is where Seventeen Hats Marketplace just fills the gap, right? So we are helping to onboard using onboarding tools from other successful Seventeen Hats members. And so it just really comes into play in a beautiful way where you can use these tried and true templates and install those onto your account and get onboarded almost immediately.
00:40:13
Speaker
What's your favorite template so far? Have you? Good ones. There are so many good ones. I tell you what, I had one of the most dynamic workflows come through and it is created by a senior photographer. Her name is Deb Mitzel. And whenever I went to go review this template, I ended up getting on Miro, which is, have you ever used Miro? So it's like this workflow and it charts. It's a charting tool.
00:40:43
Speaker
And you can use different shapes for different parts of your processes. At any rate, her item was so dynamic that I thought it would be really beneficial for me to draw out her workflow so I can see all of these connection points. So it was just really great. So if you are looking, if you are a senior photographer looking for an incredibly dynamic
00:41:07
Speaker
workflow process. DevMitzel has just this incredible item out here. And so what I really like about Marketplace is that there are really two different takes on Marketplace items. So you can either purchase and install someone's entire process, like what DevMitzel had. So her process took you all the way from inquiry to off-boarding, right? So it's a higher client process.
00:41:35
Speaker
But then there are also people who just give you a piece of the process. And I think about Will Waller has a headshot item in there, and his headshot item is just the online scheduling portion of that. He also has the entire workflow, but then he just has the online scheduling portion. And so I think about it. I'm from Oklahoma. We love pizza in Oklahoma, so everything is back to a pizza analogy.
00:42:03
Speaker
If you want the whole process on a marketplace item, it's like purchasing the whole pizza, right? The whole pizza pie. But if you want just a snippet of the process, it's like a slice. And so what I love is that there's a mix, right? You can either buy a whole process or you can just buy a slice of pizza.
00:42:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, not just pizza, it's a business in the box. Oh, why? Yeah, I mean, this is for someone just instilling someone's 15 years of knowledge, 20 years of knowledge into your business and a click of a button for like, I don't know, $150 or less than it just it's crazy what how you could start a business. So
00:42:45
Speaker
Easy if you put the work into it just for a day. And so what we found is that really there are three types of people who are going after these marketplace items and who are purchasing those items. And so the first group is kind of the group that we've been generally talking to and that's people who are looking to set up, right? Fresh start, they just joined their new members. They can get this turnkey set up through the marketplace.
00:43:10
Speaker
But that second group is really what you just mentioned right there. It's members who have been members for a while who just aren't necessarily using all of the features that are in Seventeen Hats. Like we mentioned, it's a big platform. It's very robust. There are so many features. And so by being a member for a long time, maybe you haven't, you haven't implemented all of these great features, but now you can, you can go in and do that.
00:43:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's so cool. It's kind of like you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but I'm the old dog. I'm going to try to learn some new tricks for his 17 hats and be so mesmerized by everything. I guess last question before rapid fire questions, but just speak to wedding pros struggling to get leads. They're doing all the things, Instagram, networking, vendor outreach,
00:44:06
Speaker
new website, but they just can't seem to make it happen. What would you tell them to inspire them? Yeah, I would say keep the course, right? Something is going to stick. I mean, we've all heard the throwing spaghetti on the wall phrase, right? Like try everything and when something sticks, really pursue that. So if you are hitting social media and your Instagram, if you are going every day and committing so many hours every single week to your social media,
00:44:36
Speaker
and it's not sticking, but referrals are, then let's channel our energy into the direction where it's sticking. Um, and I, as an analytical person would encourage everyone to create a spreadsheet, right? Or some sort of documentation where you can figure out where your leads are coming in. 17 hats also does that for you, by the way. Um, you can chart where your leads are coming in from.
00:45:01
Speaker
Um, and I would just say, keep an eye on that. See what's working. Stay in tune with your business. Don't get lost in the weeds, right? It's really easy to think, Oh, I have to show up on social media every single day. But sometimes that can become a weed for you, right? And you're so stuck in it because you feel like that is part of a process that you have to do, even though it's not yielding results.
00:45:24
Speaker
So I would say just gravitate toward the areas where you feel like you are getting results and stick with that. And just one last piece of my opinion on social media is social media can almost run itself if you do it well, right? If you automate, if you go through and you have all these pre-scheduled posts and if you share your galleries with other vendors, they are going to be sharing and then you can just share what they share
00:45:52
Speaker
Um, there are ways to automate that as well. Um, because I feel like more and more, it is so difficult to be recognized and to be booked based on a social media account. I mean, yeah. I gave a lot of, a lot of good nuggets in that one answer. Good job. That's so beautiful. Okay. Um, fun questions. What's your biggest mom advice for me or mom hack or mom? Anything? Oh my goodness. Okay. Let me think about this one. Well, mom hack.
00:46:22
Speaker
Set boundaries with your kids, just like with anything else, set boundaries with your kiddos, right? What does that mean? So that means sometimes mommy has to work. Sometimes I have to shut my office door and we need some time. But when I'm on work mode, I'm on work mode. And when I am on mom mode, I am on mom mode. And I try my very, very best to honor that.
00:46:45
Speaker
Um, and years ago, someone gave me the best advice and they said, if you are on your phone and your kiddo comes over to you and starts talking to you, doesn't matter what they're saying. It doesn't matter how important a thing is going on on your phone. You put your phone down and you look at your kid to look at them and to say, I need five more minutes to react. I will be with you. Just put it down.
00:47:11
Speaker
I know I love those years. They go so fast, right? Like we have a kiddo going into high school and I'm telling you last year he was just four years go by so quickly. Um, and we're going to be tugged, right? As moms, we're going to be tugged in so many different directions and you just really have to plant your feet, know where your true north is and just,
00:47:38
Speaker
Hang in there. Yeah, I love that. How do you keep your marriage alive? Any marriage hacks? Oh, I mean, I will say my husband makes it very easy. He really does. But we have a very big phrase in our house, and it is called stay in your lane. Have you heard that? I mean, I heard it not in marriage, but in business.
00:48:03
Speaker
Yeah. So a lot of times, like we'll just say stay in your lane, right? This is you, this is me. And if you see that someone is getting overwhelmed, well sure, then you can take over things. But we are never the couple to criticize if it's not our lane.
00:48:19
Speaker
Right? So I do most of the cooking. I used to enjoy it. Now I'm not really for sure if I do. But it does not matter what I cook. My husband and my family will eat that.
00:48:37
Speaker
And if they want to criticize, it's just to stay in your lane situation, right? Like this is mom's lane. Unless you want to eat something differently, just eat. Yeah, my husband's like, please don't cook. I am waiting for the day that that phrase is not in my house. It's like not edible. So there are just things along those lines. And you know, marriage is hard.
00:49:06
Speaker
Family's hard, work's hard. Everything is hard. You've just got to figure out what it takes, what is required of you, and just put it in. Aw, well, this is such a fun conversation. You have such a great personality. I'll kind of tell people where to go. 17hats.com, use my promo code, heck yes, to get 50% off the entire year, not the month, the year. So you're welcome.
00:49:36
Speaker
And check out the marketplace. You're going to die when you just see it and delve into it. It could change your whole entire business. And is there anywhere else that they could find you, Emily? Or are you more secretive? Well, I mean, if you ever need to email me, you can email me at Emily at 17hats.com. And you'll see me show up on those social media accounts at 17hats.
00:50:03
Speaker
Yay! Thank you, Emily! So much! Thanks for joining me this week on Get a Heck Yes with Carissa Wu. Make sure to follow, subscribe, leave a review, or tell a friend about the show. Take a screenshot and post to IG. Tag me. Also, don't forget to download my free guide on how to become a lead generating machine. See you next time, wedding pros!