This is a long post and I promise I have a picture at the end
……Have I said lately how much I love fall? I know that most people will think I’m crazy but I LOVE fall in northwest Washington. This is our 4th fall season here as we moved here in April of 2005 and today was a particularly blustery rainy day but I loved looking out at the rain steadily falling while I worked and played with my little Kasen. We’ve been getting ready for Halloween in our house and doing lots of “fallish” things- like drinking hot chocolate, going to corn mazes, getting pumpkins, making pumpkin muffins, and putting up festive decorations. Unfortunately Nathan won’t be with us this year as he’s off traveling the globe working, but I told him I wasn’t buying any candy to give out this year….you should have seen his face! But my excuse is that I’ll be taking the kids out trick-or-treating (yes all 3 of them), so I won’t be home to hand out candy and they’ll get plenty of candy in each of their bags. Secretly I hate standing at the door waiting for kids to say “trick-or-treat” and handing them a hand full of candy. I’d much rather go out with the kids and make sure THEY go door to door getting their candy. If it’s anything like last year, I’ll be throwing about 1/2 of the candy away. TRUST me!…..I’m SO over 3 little boys with sugar highs after about 3 days. Anyway, Nathan told me that a house with Halloween decorations HAS to pass out candy……is that the truth? What do you guys think? We can still be festive and decorate and not be home to pass out candy right? Whether it’s right or not, I’ll be off guiding Harry Potter, Snake Eyes from Spiderman, and a little mini quarterback down the hopefully dry streets filling up their bags with candy.
So let’s talk about this weeks topic- Staying Busy during “down” time. This doesn’t have to only apply to photographer’s. We’ve all had jobs where there’s super busy times, super slow times, and then just regular workloads. I remember being a manager in the retail industry at a couple of different stores. When I was managing Aeropostale in South Bend, IN, “back to school” time was CRAZY! Like; out the door, steady stream of people, wiped my merchandise tables clean for hours, kind of busy. The kind of busy when I was closing the tills at night and would make bank deposits of $50,000+ in cash and checks. THAT kind of crazy busy. Then, a couple of weeks later when school was in session we’d die down, I mean it was like a ghost town! No one in the store, time to perfectly fold every stack of graphic tees with a folding board, $150 TOTAL sale days slow. It was during those slow times that I was able to catch my breath, refocus on goals, sales and merchandising, work on my recruiting skills and teaching associates ways to move forward in their career.
I’ve always talked about how my business management background has helped me in more ways than I could ever imagine in my own photography business. I started managing stores when I was 19 years old, working my way up into upper management at some of the biggest department stores. I learned many things along the way, including how to stay busy during slower times. It’s hard to sometimes not get discouraged when your business slows down for whatever reason it may be. Maybe it’s the off season if you’re a wedding photographer, maybe the weather directly impacts your business because you are a mostly on location photographer, maybe your family life has changed because you’ve had a baby or you’ve moved to a different location. Whatever the reason may be, there will be cycles of crazy hectic business and then times of slow down almost to a trickle.
In my particular case I’ve been SUPER busy this last year shooting weddings, portraits, and traveling. I decided to raise my prices to meet current industry standard and to really include the products, and time that I feel my clients deserve. I’ve also learned a lot over the past few years about the importance of getting paid for my time. Even after a photo shoot. Because when I’m done with a 1-2 hour portrait session or a 10-12 hour wedding, I still have a LOT of work to do. Anyway, since I’ve raised my prices I’ve found that I’m still booking sessions and weddings even into next year but not at the rate I was, in fact just this week I had 4 people ALL ON THE SAME DAY, turn down my services for one reason or another. These were clients that I was pretty confident I was going to be working with, but it just wasn’t to be I guess…….it’s an odd feeling having all editing caught up and all lab orders in and only a few sessions scheduled. But it’s also exhilarating! Sure I could get down and out about not booking those clients, but I’m not. Instead I get to work on some projects that I’ve had at the back of mind for a long long time! Here’s some things I’m working on during the off season and “down” time and hopefully it might give you some ideas:
1. Branding: I get to work more on refining my brand. A lot of you may ask what is a “brand” but it’s so important in any business industry. Your brand is what tells the world what YOU are about, what your business is about. Some great brand examples are Nike, Tiffany, Jasmine Star, McDonalds. You see those business logos or pieces of their brand, like packaging and you know right away what it stands for and the quality you’re going to get. You have instant recognition of the business through how they brand. So everything we do as business owners speaks our brand to our clients. How we interact, how we deliver goods, how we price, the products we offer, the presentation of our business through business cards, website, blog, meeting space. ALL of that is our brand, and that’s one thing I’m working on in the down time. If you’re wanting to get your brand together, spruce it up or want to browse some truly inspiring stuff check out these 3 companies that I’ve been researching and who in my opinion are experts on honing in a brand for someone:
2. Marketing: I work on marketing ideas for the next year. I’ve decided in my business that my fiscal year runs from January to December. So during the slow time of the fall, I like to plan out what I’m going to be doing for marketing for the next year. This might be seasonal ideas, holiday ideas, etc. To me, marketing begins with an idea and then I have to go out and be active on that idea to sell it to other’s. Marketing for me is anything that I do that is going to bring business in for the business. Maybe it’s working on sample albums for vendors, maybe it’s regrouping my senior reps at a dinner and setting up incentives and goals, it can really be anything. But you have to make time to think and plan ahead and I do that during slow times.
3. Financial Organization: Getting my financial and client data base in order. As we get busy sometimes some of us- ahem ME- put things off that maybe we shouldn’t. This planning time I’m really trying to work on getting a tight schedule down so that I don’t end up like I am now- with a pile of receipts in a basket waiting to be sorted and entered for expenses, etc. My tax time this year is going to be a bit hectic. I need to go through my studio management software and organize my clients etc, maybe follow up with potential clients that never booked for one reason or another.
4. Learning: Lastly I want to work on skills or ideas that I’ve been wanting to get better at but never really had the time when it’s super busy. For me this is experimenting more with OCF (Off Camera Flash), maybe attending a workshop or seminar or two. Learning how to use a certain program more or technique. It’s learning time for me, because I believe that we should never stop learning and trying to improve our own skills.
So there you have it! My little Friday night book. Was it a boring read? It was relaxing writing it as the rain poured down outside and my kiddos are all tucked in their beds. I hope that these Feature Friday’s help at least one person out there. If you have ideas or questions you want covered in any upcoming Feature Friday, send me an e-mail and let me know. I have a running list of my own and other’s suggestions, and remember, we ALL want to succeed at our businesses. It doesn’t do anyone any good to get down and depressed about not being busy, look at that slower time as an opportunity to refine other areas that you don’t necessarily have time for when it’s hectic. I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and here’s a collage of snapshots, showing what our family has been up to these last few weeks, enjoying fall with friends……..
by Katie
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