Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Sustainable Photography. This is episode 159 and today I have Melissa Rich with me. She's the founder of Virtually Done Systems, which is a business dedicated to all things systems and workflows for you as a photographer and creative business owner. Melissa actually used to be a wedding photographer, so she knows what it's all about and what she can do to help you with your issues so that you can get your life back, basically by implementing stretchy strategic systems, workflows and automations.
You're listening to Sustainable Photography, a podcast all about business tips, inspiration and confidence building. I'm Ingrid Colness, the host of this podcast, and after over a decade as a photographer, I now help talented photographers run sustainable businesses. And for full transparency, you should know that I'm a mentor with paid offers and I will probably mention some of those in this episode.
Hi, Melissa, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?
[00:01:09] Speaker B: I am so excited to be here. Ingvald. Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Yeah, of course. I just. Well, I love systems and all the things that can make your business run more smooth, more easy to spend less time doing. All the things that you, you just can't avoid it. You have to do it. So. And I know that you can relate to that, but I also know that you used to be a wedding photographer. So I want to know all the things. How did you get started as a photographer? How did you move over to doing something completely different? So tell us everything.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: How much time do we have today?
No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I kind of fell into wedding photography, if you will. So I graduated from college, right? And I met a boy. And this boy was a photographer and he had friends who were starting to get married and they were like, hey, Kyle, can you come photograph our wedding? We're your friend, right? We all have that age old story of I know a friend who wants me to do this thing for them, right? I'd never picked a camera up professionally in my life. And honestly, I started down the path of being a wedding photographer by helping my then boyfriend, now husband, with the back end of his business. He was like, hey, could you proofread this email or, or could you take notes at this client meeting or could you hold my camera gear at this wedding? You can have a piece of cake when it's done and dance. And I was like, okay, sure, great, right? That was literally like the first four years of our wedding photography business. I'd done a little bit of research and I started to Like Creative Live was a thing. Do you remember Creative Live?
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. I started there as well, like watching everything that I could on Creative Live.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: Oh my gosh. And somebody had done a class about albums. And so I was like, hey Kyle, you should maybe think about offering albums to your clients. And he was, was like, no, that takes way too much time and is going to be way too complicated and they're not going to want to pay for it. And I was like, no, but it could really make you some good money, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, here's my laptop, I'm going to go to work. If you want to mess with it, you can. By the time he got home that day, I had designed like a 60 page, beautiful album. We took it to the client, they bought it, and then he was like, okay, maybe she's onto something.
And so then I started assisting, guiding, taking over, helping with more aspects of his business, if you will. And I was along with him on every single wedding and every engagement session. Just like being the Val, right? The voice activated light stand, going here, doing there, being the clown when something is misfiring so that the client's distracted. Eventually I started having ideas of my own about photos that I wanted to see come to life. And I could not for the life of me get him to understand and to execute the photo that I saw in my head. And so I was like, okay, it's time for me to learn how to shoot. And so he taught me how to shoot. And there was a lot of, a lot of practice with our dogs, right? Those corgis hate cameras to this day. And eventually I started shooting and I became his equal and we ran our business together. We both left our full time jobs, we picked our lanes, right? He was definitely the creative. I definitely ran more of the back end of the business and that's where I was happy. But we ran our wedding photography business full time for eight or nine years together after we left our corporate jobs. So 15 years total. Eight or nine years after we left our corporate jobs, as all things happened, the pandemic hit. We all know that, right? It impacted everybody. During that time we had a wedding photography business and a corporate events photography business and they both just, it was horrible. They both just got depleted.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: And so I started picking up work as a virtual assistant. Right. Because I had, in my previous life, while we were building our business, I had worked for a healthcare IT company on a process improvement team. Right. And so that's where I first learned about processes and workflows. And change management and systems and all of those things, how to map something out. And so I had done that for our business. But as I was taking on more virtual assistant work, I started doing more of that and I realized that the clients that I loved working with the most were the ones that had me building systems for them.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: And so as we came out of the pandemic, Kyle got the opportunity to do more of what he had always wanted to do, which was like professional sports photography and events photography, traveling the country and that kind of. And I just fell back in love with systems, but also knowing what it takes to run a creative business, specifically a photography business. I was like, photographers brains don't work like this. I have this secret insider knowledge.
I can help so many people if I do this. And so that's. That's how I kind of crossed over from wedding photography into systems and workflows. Not a short story, sorry.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: No, that was perfect. Because it really helps everyone, including me, understand how did you get good at this and how you understand both sides? Because it's easy for a systems person to understand the systems and for a photography person, it's really easy not to understand it and not to want to spend the time doing it, but you kind of have both.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: I'm a weirdo. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I love that so much because, well, I was on that process management team for probably four years before I left it to run our business. And I had learned so much and I knew going into running our business full time, the reason I left my real job first was so that we could get the back end set up and running the way we wanted it to and needed it to. And Kyle just wanted to shoot. And every photographer that I've ever met just wants to shoot. None of them start a business to write emails and set up systems and anything like that. And so we got some really good advice from a business coach early on to pick a lane and stay in it. And so he was the creative until I learned to shoot. And I always handled the back end of the business. So I loved it more than shooting. Shooting would be my.
I have a system to do this, if you will. I didn't have the creative aspect of it. I had the system to do it. But I learned so much about what it takes to run a business, a photography business. It's just incredible.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I can definitely believe that because I know most, if not all of the photographers I know, they started because they loved photography and then they got more into it and more into it. And suddenly it was a business. And then it's like, but I just want to take photos. And then I'm stuck doing all these other things that I A, don't want to do, B, don't know how to do or don't want to spend the time learning how to do it better or quicker or anything. And can you share a little bit about how you've helped others, like run their business in a better way, an easier way?
[00:07:52] Speaker B: Yeah, so I have, I've, I, I love all the people that I get to work with, right? I love all of them. There are a few that it's made such a big difference for. One of my clients, Kelly, she was working on opening. She had a very successful multimillion dollar studio located on the east coast in the US and she was working on opening up other studios, right?
She was doing all of this on paper. She had not a scheduling system in place, no client database. She had an email management system that she was using. But everything else in terms of her post production and who ordered what and everything like that was on paper. And we're talking hundreds of sessions a year, multiple photographers, right? And so I built a database for her, like I built a CRM for her and Monday to manage all of those things. That was four years ago. She brought me back in to make a couple of updates a few weeks ago, but she was actually able to take a vacation without her laptop during the. After we got that CRM up and running for her.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: That's the dream, right?
[00:08:52] Speaker B: She has twins, she has kids, you know what I mean? Like, she got to spend time with her kids. And then there was Mary Beth, who is a boudoir photographer and she is an incredible photographer, but she, again, she'd been in business for 17 years and she didn't do the volume that Kelly did, right? She just did maybe 40 sessions a year. But again, it was all in her head and she was fighting with the CRM that she had previously chosen that other educators had told her was the right CRM for her. And so we worked together to really map out her workflow. We got her in the right for her CRM, right? Because there's not one tool that's right for everybody. And honestly, we completely automated her business. She wants it to run, she wanted it to run hands off. We got it up and running a month before she took maternity leave and she was able to take four months of maternity leave, not just three or two, you know what I mean? And enjoy her new baby. And that was just the best Thing ever. And then when she was ready, she just turned everything on again and she's booking like crazy. And she chose to automate it. All right. I didn't push her for that because that's a big assumption as well, too.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: It's a big step. Yeah, definitely. I know for me that I would have quit photography long before I did. I'm not completely done, but long before I, like, scaled down if it hadn't been for my CRM. Like, I was so, so exhausted. I was just. I didn't want to do it anymore because there was so much to keep track of. I had, like, a system of a document with all my email templates, and I had a spreadsheet with all my inquiries, and there was just a lot of copy paste and trying to keep track of everything. And to me, my CRM was.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: It was like a lifesaver, genuinely. They are. They are in my photography business, but also in this business, I could not live without my CRM, could not function without it.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Yeah, it just the.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: The systems that you put into place, the. The email templates and the spreadsheet, that's a good starting system. Right. But as your business evolves, your systems need to evolve. And that's something that a lot of us don't realize until it's too late. And then we're, like, scrambling.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I know that even at, like, the mention of the word systems when.
When you're talking to photographers like, oh, there's an easier way.
My experience is that photographers often get a little bit scared. Like, I have enough just trying to keep what I already have. I don't have the bandwidth to try to take on something new.
What do you recommend that or where would you recommend that they start?
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Small, Right. With what you have. This was a mistake that I made in our wedding photography business. When I first got started, we didn't have a whiteboard. It was just after the holidays, and I was forcing Kyle to sit down and set some goals and map out our workflows, right. Because we had to do it.
Rolled this piece of wrapping paper, right. And I taped it to the wall, and I was like, we're gonna map it out. Right. And so we mapped out our entire wedding client workflow from very start to very end. And then we tried to. I tried to build the workflows for that. That was a massive mistake because that's like, this is a really bad. I can't think of another analogy, but this is a really. Not a great one. I love elephants, for the record, but it's like trying to eat an elephant. Right. You can't do it all at once. You have to do it one bite at a time. And so like you have to start small. Start with one piece of that big workflow. Break it down. Maybe you just want to focus on the initial inquiry piece. Right. What happens from the time that a client inquires, until they decide they book or until that first meeting? Start small. Start with what you have. Because even if you don't realize it, you have systems. You have things that you do for every client that's considered a system, whether you realize it is or not.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. That's actually what I usually say as well. Just start by connecting your contact form to your CRM. Start there. Start as small as you possibly can and just wait until you're ready to do more later on.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: Absolutely. I mentioned this earlier, but your systems should grow and evolve. We all start with that friend who wants us to do this thing for them. We don't know what we're doing then, so we're making it up as we go. And then that grows into a few more and a few more and then we have that business and we're still doing the same things that we kind of cobbled together when our friend asked them to. Yeah, but your services have changed or your brand has changed or your business has changed and your systems should evolve as those things change too. But it's absolutely okay to start teeny tiny with what you've got. That's better than nothing.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. Do you have like a favorite tool or multiple favorite tools when it comes to like automations or systems or CRMs or.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I do. I'm a dub sonic girl. I love, love, love.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: Me too. I love Dubsado too.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: I could tell from your buttons and your scheduler.
I could not live without Dubsado. I loved it for my wedding photography business. I love it for my systems business, for our wedding photography business. Specifically the custom fields and the ability to create your own custom fields and do what you want with. Those are just lovely.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: But I love Dubsado. And then I love ClickUp.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: Me too.
Yes.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: I knew it was going to be a great conversation.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: I feel like I'm doing everything right now and the expert is using the same tools as me.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Right. I love ClickUp though. And a lot of times that's a piece that small business owners, especially photographers, that project management tool is a piece that they leave out because I don't need that I have it all in my head. I have my Lightroom catalog. I'm just a photographer, I don't need that, whatever that mindset is. That's also like how you keep track of post production and all the things that you do behind the scenes. That's also how you help reach your goals and map out your goals and your dreams and where you want to go. So those two combined are a deadly combination. I couldn't function without either one, to be honest.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Yeah, no. I use ClickUp for like I have everything in there. So even though I, for me, I like to write things on paper so I can't get it to work for like the day to day management. But everything's in there. So when I need something, everything's there. So if I'm looking for a freebie, if I'm looking for a person, like someone who sent me something once, like a testimonial or something like that, it's all in there with their photo, what they said, everything. And it's just such a time saver and brain space saver.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: Oh my gosh. See, that's the thing about systems, right? They're there to help save your brain space and energy so you can focus on doing what you love. And so many creatives and photographers especially think that systems are there to take away their creativity. Because then I can't write this specific thing that I want to this client. You can. It's just there to help give you a starting point so you have the brain space to think about what you want to add.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Yes, that's exactly how I feel as well about templates, like so many photographers are feeling. No, because then it's not going to be personal anymore. And it's like, yes, it is. You just change out the stuff that you need to change out and the rest is in there for you to not forget to say anything. So everyone gets the same experience.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Or let's say I love templates as well too. Because if you've had a client situation come up that you had to deal with once, but that isn't super common, you have that email template to refer back to to figure out how you handled it without digging through everything.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that so much. And I think just kind of emphasizing the fact that you don't have the templates and the systems for you to not be creative, you have it so that you can focus on the parts of your business that you love. Because most photographers probably don't love writing emails, but it's a part of it. You have to do it.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: You really do. So I'm a data nerd. I don't know that I've told you this yet, but while I was on that process management team, I also did a little bit of data analysis and business analysis and that kind of thing. And data was one thing that I geek out over a good Google sheet. Right. I collected data from my clients about how long does it normally take you to write an email? How long does it take you to do that, that kind of thing? On average, it takes the photographers that I work with shoot, all business owners that I work with, anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to write an email in response to a client email. Right. Let's say you have 10 emails in your inbox that you have to tackle. That's. What if that's like 200 minutes, which is almost three hours, right?
[00:17:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: Would you rather spend three hours writing emails or three hours doing something creative, taking photos, booking sessions, marketing that those email templates are going to save you, you know what I mean? Even if it just cuts that time down in half. That's so much time you get back by using a template.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And I also think that an argument to not do it is that it takes a lot of time, but that time. Yeah, it takes that time up front, but then later on you're going to save it back. So. Yeah, Yeah.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: I also hear people don't like templates because they feel cold and they feel robotic and your client knows if they got a template, that's only if you wrote it as a cold robot. Right?
[00:18:06] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: If you write those email templates in your brand voice as if you're having a conversation with someone, it's not going to feel cold and robotic and your client's never going to know.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Absolutely. And you don't have to send it out automatically either if you don't want to. That's a big step to actually have it be automatic. But to have it, at least in Dubsado, you can just, just click whichever email you want to add and then you can tweak whatever you want to tweak and then click send. It's so quick.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: Right. You bring up a really good point because a lot of time people misconstrue and confuse the words systems with automations.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: A system is a series of steps that you follow that get you from point A to your end result. Right. An automation is a workflow or a set of steps that happens automatically without human interference to make something happen. Right.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Systems do not always equal automations. You can have great systems and none of it can be automated. And that's okay. Like you don't have to automate everything to have a really good system.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I tried automating more than I do now, but it turns out like, you know, not everything works. And now I automate like all my reminders, that kind of stuff. But. And like as soon as someone sends an inquiry, they get an automated response. But everything except for that I have to be in there and just check that everything looks good and stuff, because that feels better to me. So you can do as much or as little automation as you want.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: You really can. And it makes a big difference.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: It does.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: That sense of mind. And if you're. That peace of mind. And even if you're starting and you're starting with automations, start with something easy like a calendar reminder or an invoice reminder and then the more comfortable you get with things, add that auto reminder. I love that you do that. That makes me so happy. That's like tip number one, right?
But you start small.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: I know that a lot of my listeners here are actually Norwegian and I wanted to create something especially for you. So I know it sounds a bit strange since I'm here speaking English and I'm Norwegian and all that. I'm very much aware that that is a little bit strange. But now, now I have made something especially for you as Norwegians. It's called Fotograf Akademia, the photographer's academy. And it's going to be a place where we can serve you as a photographer, helping you out with what you need at different levels. So I want you to check it out. You can go over to my Instagram Ingvil Kolnes and you can DM me if you're curious about how I can help you with your business in general. But. But you can also find a lot of information there about the photography academy. If you are Norwegian, if you're not, just DM me in English and you'll be fine.
I also know, like, based on the fact that I work with a lot of photographers, I know that a lot of them would say, like, I'm too disorganized, it's not for me. My brain doesn't work like that. How can they get started creating a sustainable workflow?
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Oh my gosh. I love this question. Because so often people think again goes back to that piece of wrapping paper. You have to start super big and then it immediately goes into your CRM and there's not another way to do it, right? Oh my gosh the thing to build sustainable systems that work for you the way your brain works, right? Because photographers are visual people. You have to build those systems in a way that works for you. Right. My favorite way to map out systems is to get a pile of sticky notes or post it notes in a Sharpie. And I have giant ones windows over on my wall. And I'll write down step one and stick the post it note up and then write down step two. I'll write all my steps out and then I'll move them around so that I can visually see that workflow and identify any gaps. Right? That's a great way to start and to figure out what steps need to go into your system. My husband, on the other hand, he hates writing. He is also, he's like one of the most creative humans I know. So him, when it comes time to build systems for his business, it's like, Kyle, I'm going to either ask you questions or I want you to go like get in the car, go for a drive. Because he likes to like drive and, and talk and that kind of thing. Get in the car, go for a drive and then leave yourself a voice memo as you think about what you want to happen for your clients. That way you have it documented. And then we'll take all those, that voice memo and those things you want to happen and we'll lay it out in a visual way, right? You can visually map out a workflow in canva in Photoshop using shapes on a piece of paper. It doesn't have to be in your CRM, nor should it be in your CRM from the get go, right? Map it out, identify the steps and before you even log into your CRM, go back and create the things you need, right? Like if step one is send an email, write the email template or figure out what you want to say in the email. If it's send an email with a scheduler, create that scheduler. That way you've got all of the, I like to call them the goods. You've got all of the goods created. So when it comes time to build in your CRM, it's not start, stop, start, stop, start, stop. But it's I have these things, I know what I want to happen. Now I'm going to go back and build.
In terms of workflows that work for you, you have to think about how you work, right? If like Mary Beth, you want everything automated and you want it completely hands off so you can spend time with your kids, you need to find a system that will Handle that. If you want a lot of manual control, you need to find a system that will handle that.
This is going to sound silly, but the right tool to work for you is going to be the tool that works for you. As a photographer, I jumped CRMs for the fun of it, which is not something that I would ever recommend. Right. But I ran my business in Tave, in studio ninja, in 17 hats, in Honeybook. I finally landed in Dubsado after everything else because none of those systems worked for me. You have to use a system or a platform that works for you, and sometimes it takes some time trying to figure that out. And that's okay.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: I've heard the same thing, like getting stuck and also thinking like, oh, there's a right way to do it, instead of checking in with yourself, like, what do I actually need? And that's why I think doing it all on paper or in a different tool first, before you start or even open or decide on which CRM you want is the best way to do it.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: Absolutely. I couldn't recommend that enough. Yeah.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Is there like a common sign? Is there something that you see, like, okay, I see this happening. It's definitely time that you need to start fixing your systems or start using systems or like that there's something missing.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Yes.
There's a couple of signs. Right. And we talked about one of them already. If you are still using the systems that you were using when you started your business and it's seven years later, it's time to update those for sure.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: The second sign is going to happen during your busy season. And this sounds so silly, but the best time to audit your systems is during busy season. If you find that you are constantly ignoring them or changing messages or changing email templates or not using them or adding this or adding that because it's not in your system, that's a sign that your system is broken and it needs your attention. Right. So anytime you find yourself realistically making those adjustments or tweaking those things or, oh, but I need to send this out, or I forgot about this, or I have to change that email or add this to the that questionnaire, it's time to update your systems. Right.
If your clients are getting stuck or struggling or they are getting lost somewhere along the way, that's a sign that it's time to update your systems. I did that in my own systems business over the holidays. Okay. Even a systems person has to update their systems. You just have to take yourself out of it and look at it from that client perspective and Be like, why are we getting stuck here? What keeps happening? And then refresh that or readjust that and update those systems. I recommend looking at your systems at least at minimum once a year. Preferably more frequent than that, but at least once a year.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's good. And maybe adding it to a calendar or something to remind yourself every month or six months or whatever. Check in to see that everything's working the way that you want it to.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: I've got my ClickUp recurring task manager for once a quarter.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: Yeah, that sounds like a great way to do it.
I'm also curious if you have any recommendations as to which things you should automate and which things you should do manually.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: Oh, that's a great question. You should automate anything that you do repeatedly that takes up a lot of time or that you think, why am I doing this? I should be spending my time on something else, right? Scheduling reminders or scheduling meetings with your clients. I get a lot of pushback from photographers who don't want clients to have access to their schedulers, who prefer to schedule sessions and meetings manually instead of using a scheduler one. I completely understand not wanting your clients to have full access to your calendar or wanting that control.
However, if you're going to go back and forth and it's going to take you five emails to schedule a meeting that's going to last 15 minutes, you've likely spent longer than 15 minutes just trying to schedule that meeting. Right? So use a scheduler, even if it's for little things and not necessarily sessions. I also think that you start with invoice reminders, right? Well, odds are that none of us started our photography businesses to make money. We started them because we love taking photos. We have businesses now and we need to get paid because we have bills and it's okay to ask people to pay you when they're supposed.
Automatic invoice reminders are the easiest way to do that. Outside of that, I love a good automated inquiry responder like you said that you have, because that sets the tone for getting back to clients. And it can just be a simple, hey, I'm checking my calendar. I'll get back to you within 24 hours. That puts you back in their inbox immediately while they're still hot and excited and ready to chat and ready to book. And it doesn't have to be super customized right now when it comes to things that you should do manually, there's a couple of things that I think you should do manually, and I think there's a couple of Things that people find that they want automated but then wind up doing manually after the fact. Right. I'm working with a photographer now and he likes to have text conversations with his clients leading up to the session to build relationships and things like that. While we could set up an automation too, when this happens in your CRM, zap this text message out to this client automatically. He wants to have that genuine connection. And so we built tasks into his workflow to remind him to reach out via text to talk to the client about this thing. Right. That's still something he's going to do manually. If you are preparing for a shoot and there's some like I liked in my wedding photography business, I like to send like a happy wedding week email that went out the week before that was like, hey, so excited. Here's where I'll be when and here's when coverage ends and here's when family photos are going to happen and all of those things. Right. To let the client know I was on top of things.
I could have completely automated that, but that was something that I chose to manually send because I wanted to double check all of my details and everything like that. So that's something that I chose to manually send as well too. I also like to make sure everyone has like a review or a testimonial reminder built in. And while it's great to have a template to start with, there are some clients spoken as a photographer who you don't want to hear from after the fact. Right. That should be a manual process so that you at least have to approve that email before it goes out so it doesn't go to Bob and Jane who were really difficult to work with and who you don't want to know what they think, you know.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I understand. Okay. So I guess you have to review your entire process to see like, okay, this is fine to automate, this is not. And then review later on to see how did that go and can I automate more or do I need to maybe do more things manually?
[00:30:16] Speaker B: Absolutely. And it's going to change, you know, as your clientele changes, that will change too. If you start out shooting for friends and then you grow into a more high end clientele, those expectations are going to be differently as well too. And you're going to want to communicate with your client differently. And so that client experience will change and what you should automate versus Keepmanual will change as well too.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that's an excellent point. Yeah, absolutely.
Even ding is for quite some time.
What would you say have Been like your biggest lesson about running a business.
[00:30:52] Speaker B: That you have to be 100% true to yourself, no matter who that is, despite who you want to work with, because otherwise you are going to be miserable and clients will tell and they won't book you anyway. And that has nothing to do with systems at all in any way, shape or form. Right. It just has to do with serving your soul and feeding your soul. And if you're trying to be somebody that you're not or putting on a costume to go to work every day, you're going to find yourself just miserable. And that will come through. And I don't want that for anybody.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: No, definitely not. But it does happen. So I think that's a really important reminder. Absolutely.
Another thing that I see too many business owners in general struggle with is the balance between work and life.
How do you handle that?
[00:31:43] Speaker B: This is something admittedly that I struggle really, really hard with on a day to day basis, especially in our wedding photography business because you are having meetings on evenings and weekends because that's when clients can meet and you work on the weekends.
In my own business, I struggled with figuring out how to take a day off. Right. What did we do? I hired a business coach that told me that I needed better work life boundaries and then helped me set them right. Realistically, what that looks like though is using tools in your business to help set those boundaries. For instance, I rely heavily I did in my wedding photography business and I do in this business. I relied heavily on my scheduler and my CRM and Dubsado to set those boundaries for me. Right. That way I knew once I had my availability set, people could not schedule at this time or at that time. That helped significantly.
Having relationships, friendships, family members, your spouse, your partner be like, hey, you haven't taken a day off in two weeks. You need to take a day off. Like having that accountability partner is huge. I think that also setting like I don't want to say because creatives like to be creative and work whenever it hits and like, you know, my husband will be up until 2 in the morning if it, if it fits. Right. But I think setting boundaries for yourself in terms of I don't touch email after this time or I don't, or I only check email at this time and this time or that kind of thing is huge. If I'm going to shoot a wedding on a Saturday, then yes, I'm taking Sunday and Monday off and sticking to those boundaries. It's hard, hard, hard, hard. But you have boundary setting is the thing that you have to get better at. And it's going to take practice because I think that initially when we start our businesses again, we're working with friends, and then we are like, oh, maybe I should get some clients. And then we want to please everybody. You can't fill everybody's bucket if your own is empty.
[00:33:43] Speaker A: Absolutely not. That's really true and equally hard because you want to make people happy. And then, yeah, it can easily take over a little bit.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: Right. The year that we stopped, so we had our calendar wide open for clients to schedule meetings Sunday through Friday night, and then we would work Saturday. You know what I mean? The year that we changed our immediate. You're like having nightmares over there. I can see it.
The year that we changed our meeting availability to Tuesday through Thursday only changed our lives because it meant we got a break, we got a breather.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: And that was huge. And you can do that. It's your business. You can set the rules, you can make the rules.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: Absolutely. And it does make a big difference. I have the same Tuesday to Thursday availability, and it makes such a big difference because I used to have my calendar be way too open every day for like a. A very long time period as well. And then it's like, when am I supposed to do all the other things that isn't meetings if I keep getting interrupted by meetings of different sorts? So it, it really does help to have like, okay, so this is my meeting day. This is my shoot day. Like having those kind of. Of, I don't know, almost like a workflow as well.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: I like to. I like to call them theme days. Right. Mondays are for marketing and CEO. Tuesday is for client meetings. Thursday is for client meeting. Wednesday is for client work. Friday is for catch up, wrap up, everything like that. You know what I mean? As a photographer, depending on your genre, that might look different. And that's okay. But I still really, like you said, it helps to have those specific days.
[00:35:21] Speaker A: Yeah. If someone's just getting started on their creative business, what system is like, the first thing you recommend that they set up? Is that a CRM or is it something else?
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Oh, that's a great question. I honestly think, and don't tell my CRM peers this, I honestly think that having a project management tool will serve you better than having a CRM to start with.
[00:35:44] Speaker A: Oh, really? Okay.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: The reason is that project management tool is going to give you a place to put all the things that are running through your head, even if it's just the notes app in your phone. If it's todoist, you've got to have a place to put all the idea, all those ideas, otherwise they're just going to be there taking up space. You can even use a tool like that to start mapping out your workflows. Or I need to send this email, here's a link to that email template until you're ready to move into the CRM. If you don't have that though, you've got 500 notebooks and pieces of paper and a desk covered in sticky notes.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: It used to be me. Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: And so, yes, a CRM is a super powerful tool that everybody needs to have, but I think when you're just getting started, having a place to put those, to do lists, to give yourself dates, to set accountability, to keep track of all the things, it's got to be a project management tool or a list tool.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I, I understand. I just know.
I just know that, for example, ClickUp, which is what I use and, and love, it's a bit complicated, so it's a big ask to get someone to start there. But you saying that you can use just your Notes app?
[00:36:58] Speaker B: Yeah, use your Notes app. I love Trello for photographers. I used it in my own photography business. That was the first project management tool I used because it's visual. You're literally moving cards and creating lists and I can't even tell you the number of hours I spent creating custom graphics for my Trello account. Right. But it's a very visual tool that still has, has due dates, lists, checklists, things like that built in that will get you. It's a good place to dip your toes in a little bit. In addition to your notes app or todoist or whatever. Something super easy and visual.
[00:37:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that.
If someone's been listening for this episode so far and they're like, I want to do something, but I don't know what, or I don't have that much time. Do you have like a quick win that you can suggest so that someone can save time right away?
[00:37:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Set up invoice reminders.
[00:37:52] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah.
[00:37:53] Speaker B: Even if you're not using a CRM, tools like QuickBooks or Square or what's the other one? Stripe. Even if you're sending invoices through those tools, they still have invoice reminders that you can set up so you don't have to remember to go in to send those up to get paid. Right. You getting paid is like priority number one back to you getting time back.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: Right. So set up those automated invoice Reminders. Another quick win would be to, well, okay, I also love the autoresponder for a quick win, right, because it takes 10 minutes to write that little email and set it up.
But write out your initial inquiry response email, right? Figure out what you want to say in that. Have a copy, shoot, copy it and have a copy in Google Docs or even in your Gmail inbox. You can create email templates, store it there. That way you have it so you don't have to keep rewriting it every single time.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: That's a great tip. I love that. And I also know that some photographers, they're not necessarily technology fans or automation fans. It sounds scary. I don't know if I want to deal with anything more than just email and Lightroom and that's it. How can they overcome their fear of the technology and automations?
[00:39:12] Speaker B: I think that you have to start with what you're comfortable with and go from there. It's kind of like, kind of like training yourself for a marathon, right? Like let's say I'm working with a client who has a little bit of this situation going on because she's probably in her 60s, she started a business, it's to the point where she can't do things manually anymore. But she is terrified of technology, she knows she needs it. So what we're doing is we're exercising her muscles, right? Like she signed up for a trial for her CRM and we've got her initial inquiry message loaded in the there. We've got her contact form hooked up to her website.
So she's starting by just sending that initial inquiry message from her CRM, right? It's like you say, you say you want to run a marathon, you don't just go out and do it. At least my body does not go out and just run a marathon tomorrow, right? You have to train for it. You have to train those muscle memories and you have to start to train yourself to get used to it. So start small. Maybe it's just I'm going to hook up my lead capture form to my website and then I'll write, manually, write those emails from my CRM or send that initial inquiry from my CRM. Maybe when I've got that done, I might use a scheduler. It's starting really, really slow and not overwhelming yourself. If you just cannonball in off the deep end, you're not going to know up from down, head from toe, like where you're at, how the tool functions, how it works. You're going to be so lost and have such a bad experience and then never be open to trying systems or workflows again in the future. Right. I know I've said it a couple times, but it's all about starting really, really slow and small.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: Does that make sense?
[00:40:48] Speaker A: Okay, absolutely. No, I think that's perfect because again, I do think that it's like an either or thought for many people. Like either I'm doing everything or I'm not doing it. So just having that permission to just start with the reminders, like start there and, and not overdo it until you're ready for the next step and it starts to feel comfortable and you see that you're saving time and it feels lighter and.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. People make resolutions this time of year to go to the gym, to work out. Right. And the people who just go in head first, they're done by Friday this time. You know what I mean? The people who set their clothes out the night before and just wake up and look at them are like, okay, maybe tomorrow. And then they get up and they put the shoes on and okay, that's another step. Then they get up and put the shoes on and go walk to the gym. I'm just gonna stand here and look. But they keep going. How? That's how workflows work too. And automations work too. You just keep adding it on little by little by little until you are on the treadmill, doing the thing or on the bike or whatever your jam is, you know?
[00:41:52] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. No, I couldn't agree more. And you work with creative businesses and maybe other businesses as well to help them get this set up. How do you help them and how do you want them to feel or what do you want them to have accomplished when they're done working with you?
[00:42:10] Speaker B: Oh my gosh. I.
I want them to feel that sense of relief like I want them to feel. I don't, I don't want to say I want them to go from overwhelmed to breathing easy because I don't want anybody to be overwhelmed. But I want to essentially hand that system over to them and have them feel capable and confident. And I'm a little overwhelmed, but I can do this. And I want them to have that stronger belief in themselves because so oftentimes when we come up against something in our business that we don't know how to do, it scares the PA hands off of us and we stray as far from it as we can, as we can get. Right. I want them to feel like, I have these workflows, I have these systems, I can do this, that confidence, how do we get there? We map out workflows that work specifically for our clients. So it looks like a lot like this. You and I sit down and I start asking you questions. What do you want to happen first? And, okay, what do we want to say? What do you want to happen next? Well, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? Should we maybe do this? How long is your client life cycle? Like, any work workflow that I help my clients build, it is 100% for them. We have the how do you feel about automation?
Conversation, because I'm not going to push you to automate everything. If automation scares you, that's horrible. And then you're never going to use it. Right. But we have all those conversations so that we can build a workflow that works for you the way that it works, so that when we're done, you have happy clients, you feel confident, you're getting time back, and you feel that sense of overarching relief because, okay, I've got this, I can do this. It also gives you a little bit of a boost as a business owner. You know what I mean? I've got this thing in place. This makes me a real business owner, and I know what I'm doing. And, like, I don't have to compare myself to Molly down the street who seems like she's got it all together because I, too, have it all together.
[00:44:02] Speaker A: That sounds like a really nice feeling as well, to just come have someone do it for you. When I set up my dubsado, I was gonna to have someone do it for me, and I didn't because I was so impatient that I reached out to someone and before they had gotten back to me, I was already, like, halfway there, and I was like, ah, I've got it now. But that wasn't necessarily true. And then it's like, I could have had someone else do it for me and it would have been so much quicker and smoother and I wouldn't have had to try to figure out everything on my own, which is probably like what I would say to anyone wanting to start a business. Like, don't think that you need to do everything on your own. Get help whenever you can.
[00:44:45] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
And I know that me saying this as a systems person who does this for other people is going to be like, of course she's going to say that. But it's a big investment depending on what you need done. It's worth every dollar because that system is going to continue to help you book clients and bring Revenue in and serve you and the amount of. So in addition like the number of hours it takes clients. Clients save by using email templates. I look at money as well too. Right. If we say as a business owner that we pay ourselves $100 an hour, which is less than we pay ourselves to shoot. Right. To do admin work.
If you're doing all of those things manually and you finally get them systemized, you're looking at over $75,000 a year that you would have had to pay yourself to do work that you are not.
[00:45:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:35] Speaker B: Over $15,000 to hire a VA to do that work that you don't have to pay somebody because your systems are doing it for you. Right, Right.
[00:45:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: Most of my clients combined save and the average they save over is it 23 days right now by implementing systems, that's not automations, that's systems. That's email templates and schedulers and workflows. That's not even automations. That's just, just time.
Like it's a big investment, time and money wise to get it set up. But the return and that's going to happen every year. That's not just going to be this one time only. I'm going to save this much time.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: Shoot girl. Every year you're getting 23 days back because you're using email templates. Like you know.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I think that's a very good point that I recommend everyone think about. Like how much time do you spend doing everything manually yourself or even some things manually yourself? How much could you save if you had those systems? And do you have to set it up yourself? No. Find someone to help you?
[00:46:44] Speaker B: Yes. Just like you outsource editing or even clothing or whatever it might be. It took me a long time in my wedding photography business to learn to outsource those things. But that's not what I wanted to spend my time doing. Cropping photos and color correcting shoot. No, I'd rather be doing other things. Right.
You don't start your photography business so you can build workflows. It's okay to ask for help. It's okay to ask somebody to do those things for you. The only piece of advice that goes along with that, the only caveat is to make sure that you know how to work them when they're done. I've talked to so many business owners who I hired somebody before and they did all these things and now I don't know what I'm doing or how to do it. Make sure that person trains you and you Know how to use them.
[00:47:28] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a very good point.
If whoever's listening is now thinking, I want to have more systems, I want to get some help doing it, what's their next step like? How can they get in touch with you? How can they decide on who they want to work with? Do you have any advice when it comes to that?
[00:47:48] Speaker B: That's great. There are a ton of system specialists out there, Right. If you are working In a specific CRM, most CRMs will have a list of Dubsado approved specialists or Dubsado certified specialists or Honeybook specialists or whatever, who you can use to hire to set your systems up for you. These are people that are approved and certified by the CRM to work in their system, right?
[00:48:12] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:48:13] Speaker B: I'm a little unique because I run my business in a lot of these systems and so I have a lot of various experience. Right. Which oftentimes makes my clients feel really good because I can help them confirm, yes, that's the right CRM for you. If you're interested in talking or working with me, you can email me melissairtuallydone systems.com I'm on Instagram @virtuallydone systems. The website is virtuallydone systems.com as well too. So I love having a good conversation. And even if it's not, here's the thing, even if we don't wind up working together, I always want to make sure that I've at least helped point you in the right direction because that's half the battle when it comes to systems and CRMs and technology.
[00:48:52] Speaker A: So that's perfect. That sounds really great. So I'm going to make sure to put your links in the show notes so that you're easy to find.
Do you have any final notes that you want to say? Any like, final reminders or tips? When you were starting out your photography business way back, do you have any like. This is what I wish I had done.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: Again, I'm going to say be true to myself. Be true to yourself and start small. Give a new system. These are just kind of a list of things. Sorry.
If you're trying a new system like ICRM hopped so often, give that CRM more than two weeks to work for you. Right. Don't just dive in and be like, oh, this isn't going to work. Right. Give it a little bit of time.
As you are creating email templates and workflows, be true to yourself.
The three questions that I recommend everybody ask themselves are, what does my client need to know to have a good experience from me? What information do I need from them to do my job really, really well? And then what do I wish they knew? Because there's always that man. I really wish my client knew those things.
[00:49:58] Speaker A: Yeah. That's excellent. Thank you so much.
Actually, I feel really inspired to review my systems to see if I need to tweak them.
[00:50:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Yay. I'm so glad. Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.
[00:50:16] Speaker A: You just listened to an episode of Sustainable Photography. Please share this episode with the photographer you care about.
