087 - When it comes to mapping out your workflow, think of it as an investment of time and brainpower that your future self will effusively thank you for. Because once you have your workflow mapped and the pieces in place, you won't need to reinvent the wheel every time a potential new client appears. Stress drops significantly; scaling your business becomes possible.
And while it's no secret that I'm a huge fan of automation, in this episode I share specifics of the very analog system that served me well for years. No need to get fancy—you just need to get this done!
What to Listen For:
Trust me when I say this: Future You really, really wants Present You to make this a priority!
Resources From This Episode:
JOIN THE PARTY:
087 - When it comes to mapping out your workflow, think of it as an investment of time and brainpower that your future self will effusively thank you for. Because once you have your workflow mapped and the pieces in place, you won't need to reinvent the wheel every time a potential new client appears. Stress drops significantly; scaling your business becomes possible.
And while it's no secret that I'm a huge fan of automation, in this episode I share specifics of the very analog system that served me well for years. No need to get fancy—you just need to get this done!
What to Listen For:
Trust me when I say this: Future You really, really wants Present You to make this a priority!
Resources From This Episode:
JOIN THE PARTY:
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Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast.
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I'm Nicole Begley.
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And today we are on pillar five of our six part
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series about the business pillars of a pet photography website.
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And we are diving all into workflow.
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Now, workflow doesn't seem sexy.
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Doesn't seem exciting,
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but without a good quality workflow,
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you are leaving a lot of potential clients on the inquiry
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table where they're not converting to actual paid clients.
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And without a good workflow,
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you could really just run yourself ragged and quickly.
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Find yourself on the island of overwhelm,
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where you are completely burnt out of your business.
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And you are looking at the people at Starbucks and thinking,
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Hmm, being a barista doesn't seem all that bad.
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Maybe I should just quit my job.
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Quit my photography business and do that instead.
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Well, let's not do that.
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Let's stick with our pet photography business,
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but let's talk all about workflow.
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Stay tuned.
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Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast.
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If you're a pet photographer,
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ready to make more money and start living a life by
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your design,
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you've come to the right place.
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And now your host,
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pet photographer,
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travel addict,
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chocolate martini connoisseur,
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Nicole Begley.
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All right,
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welcome back everybody.
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We are back with business pillar,
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number five,
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talking about workflow today.
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If you have not heard our other four business pillars prior
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to this one,
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go back to episode number 79,
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where we start with business pillar,
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number one,
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our legal and admin,
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those our business foundations,
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really. And then the following week,
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we have business pillar.
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Number two,
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branding business pillar,
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number three website.
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Last week we talked about pricing and this week we are
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up to workflow next week.
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We'll round it off with some marketing,
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but workflow is kind of that unsung horse song,
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whatever you want to call it in our photography business,
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that piece of our photography business.
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It's not always very fun.
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That often feels completely overwhelming,
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but without these systems,
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it's really hard to build a business in a way that
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is scalable in a way that keeps our sanity,
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because when do most inquiries come in for you guys?
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I know for me,
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I can count on a new slew of inquiries.
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Every time I leave for vacation or every time I have
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a weekend plan or whenever I am not at my desk
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at two o'clock on a Tuesday,
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they're usually when I want to be doing other things because
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other people are off.
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And that's when they have time to get in touch with
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me. So you create these workflows to make sure that they
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get service quickly,
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but in a way that doesn't mean that you need to
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like leave the beach to go answer an inquiry that you
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could do that during your normal business hours.
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So that's one piece of workflow that is really,
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really important.
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Another piece of workflow is being able to deliver a experience
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to all of your clients without a workflow in place.
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You're just going to be spending so much time and energy
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spinning your wheels,
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trying to reinvent the wheel.
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Every time every client,
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every process were starting to create these processes actually frees up
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our mind to become more creative,
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to serve our clients better and to just have more fun
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in our business in life when we have these things in
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place. So that's what we're going to be talking about a
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little bit today is what we need to consider in terms
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of workflow and really the steps to start to create our
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own workflow.
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All right,
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so let's dive right in with step number one,
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and that is to map out our desired workflow.
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I can hear you.
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I can hear you guys already let go.
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My gosh,
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Nicole, if I knew that I would have a workflow already,
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I get it.
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I get it.
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It's tough.
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There's so many pieces to this workflow,
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but let me break it down a little bit more.
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Let's take this big overwhelming workflow and break it down really
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into three parts of a workflow.
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They're there they've come together for our full workflow.
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So the first section of our workflow is often our inquiry
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process. That is what our workflow is when somebody says,
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Hey, I'm interested in learning more.
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How do we handle that?
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And then if they're ready to move on,
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that moves us into our second portion of our workflow,
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which is the booking process.
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So how do we take someone from saying,
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Hey, I want to work with you to getting them onboarded,
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to getting ready for our session,
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to, you know,
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being ready to go ahead and photograph them.
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And then the third part of our workflow is our sales
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and production processes.
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So after the session,
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what does our sales system look like?
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What are our backend processes to edit order,
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deliver our files.
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So if you're feeling a little overwhelmed by mapping out this
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workflow, I highly recommend that you break it down into these
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three sections and then you can just kind of pull it
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together. And if it's still overwhelming,
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because I'm not going to lie that inquiry process and the
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booking process,
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but especially that inquiry process,
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cause it can look like so many different things can be
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so overwhelming that I find it's easier to start with our
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sales and production process because that's usually pretty straightforward.
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And then you can get a quick win.
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You can go ahead and map that out.
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You could feel good about it.
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And then we can start to tackle these other two.
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So that sales and production process is all right,
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how am I going to sell my work?
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What does that look like?
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What happens when you know,
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how is my client giving me money?
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How am I doing the receipt?
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How am I tracking my books?
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How am I ordering the,
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or editing the images and then ordering the images?
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Am I sending my client a thank you note and how
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am I packaging?
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And then delivering or having the client pick up those orders.
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And last but not least,
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how am I asking for a review?
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Don't forget to ask for those reviews.
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I shared a story about how important and how easy it
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is to ask for those reviews back on episode 82.
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So definitely check that out.
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It's only a five minute episode,
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so yeah,
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definitely check that out.
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But anyway,
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with those different or those different workflows,
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the first one to,
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to map out the easiest is that sales and production process.
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And then we can start looking at that inquiry process and
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that booking process.
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So what needs to happen at each step?
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Well, let's take the booking process next.
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I find it's easiest just to work backwards.
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And that is somebody who says,
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okay, I'm ready to book.
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All right.
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Now, what's your process?
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What are you using now?
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This is where a lot of people get hung up with
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like, oh my gosh,
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I need to have a CRM,
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like a dub Sato or a HoneyBook or a sprout studio,
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or, you know,
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one of the many different software applications that are out there
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for that.
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And those are great programs,
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but they could be really,
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really overwhelming.
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So if you're not ready for a CRM,
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that's okay.
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I didn't use one in my business for years.
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I actually just used a folder.
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I call it my folder CRM and my magazine rack CRM.
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I had a six like section magazine rack.
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Like you might see at a dentist or doctor's office on
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the wall of my office.
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And I had a stack of just,
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you know,
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folders like Nyla folders that I would print off the,
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my clients contract or their questionnaire.
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I would print off a little checklist,
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like a straight up word document checklist of the different things
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that had to get done,
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like contract sign invoice,
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or, you know,
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a session fee paid invoice,
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created images,
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edited images,
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ordered images,
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delivered high Rez,
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digitals delivered,
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or low Rez,
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digitals delivered,
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whatever it was.
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All the steps were just marked off right there on a
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piece of paper that I just stapled to the front of
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this folder.
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That was my CRM.
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That was my workflow.
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It was fine.
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It lasted for me for years.
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And as the clients would go through the process like that
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very top section was,
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let's see if I can remember this.
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The top section was people that are in the inquiry process
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and have said they wanted to book.
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So once they said,
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yes, I'm ready to book.
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Then I would make them a folder and they'd go in
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that top one.
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As soon as all of their onboarding was complete,
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their contract was signed.
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Their session fee was paid.
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Then they would go down to that next folder,
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which was getting ready for the session.
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And then once they were,
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I held the session and they were photographed,
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they'd go to the next one,
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which would be where I have to edit and prep for
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the sales session.
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And then they'd go down to the next one,
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which was a held the sale session.
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Now I need to edit the images.
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And then once I edited an ordered everything,
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then they'd go down to the next one where I'm awaiting
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delivery. And then last but not least,
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they would go to the delivered section.
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So that was just an easy way to keep track of
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that. You can do that digitally and something like Trello or
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to do us.
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I really liked having them printed and just being able to
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write it down,
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but whatever works for you,
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or you can go ahead and look at a CRM.
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The CRMs do take a little bit of time to set
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up, but once they're up,
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they're pretty easy to work with.
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I mean,
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it's pretty straightforward and streamlined,
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which is just really nice.
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It kind of automates a lot of things.
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So to recap all that,
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you're out.
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If you need a CRM,
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kind of think about what you're using,
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what information you really need to get your from your client
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and how you want to do that.
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You can do things like jot former Google forms or,
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you know,
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like I said to do a search Trello or anything just
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that Manila folder,
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whatever works for you,
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just figure out what works for you and then write down
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the steps that need to happen during that onboarding process.
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From when a client says,
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yes, I want a book to getting ready to photograph the
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session. All right.
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And then we need to back up to that booking process,
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which again can be the hardest thing.
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So here,
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the big question to ask yourself is what needs to happen
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before they book?
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Is there a situation in which someone can come to your
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website and just book,
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not inquire,
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but actually book,
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Hey, your session fee and give you money and say,
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yes, I'm ready.
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I want a book.
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Or they might come through a contact form where they have
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maybe another question,
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something like that.
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So figure out those two ways that people are coming through
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and you also then need to kind of figure out if
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there's multiple ways that you're willing to talk to people.
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You know,
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getting people on the phone is still a great thing to
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try to do or trying to get them to an in-person
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consultation or a live zoom consultation.
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Something like that is great.
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I think it's more challenging today than ever before,
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because people are so busy and as our target market gets
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a little bit younger,
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they really don't want to be bothered with that until they're
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already totally committed.
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So can you think of different ways in which we can
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start to create that connection?
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Because the whole goal of having that live interaction with them
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is creating a connection with our particular client,
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which thankfully in 2021 can also be done with video.
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I had a great conversation with Andrew helmet on episode 45
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of the podcast,
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talking all about how to use video to book more clients.
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So if you haven't listened to that,
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go check it out.
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It's episode number 45.
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But that great thing about that video is that it can
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create this connection.
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So when somebody inquires,
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do you send them a video?
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Do you have a little video on your like inquiry?
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Thank you page.
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Just what does this look like?
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Go ahead and map it out so that you can,
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you know,
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start to put together that workflow while you're back there.
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Looking at these past episodes,
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we also did an episode,
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episode number 40,
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which was inquiries that convert with some of our elevate coaches.
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So that is a great episode as well that we're talking
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about all these different inquiries.
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So definitely go back and check yeah.
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That out as well.
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All right.
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But back to our workflow.
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So that step one is just figuring out what that works
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flow looks like.
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Just write it out on a piece of paper,
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break it down into those three sections.
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If you need to and start to work backwards,
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if get stuck anywhere or starting to have trouble.
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And then step number two is to figure out what software
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you need.
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Do you need a CRM or are you going to go
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the folder route or to do a Strout or Trello route
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or Google drive,
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whatever. There are so many options out there,
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air tables and other great one so that you can just
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figure out what it is that works for you.
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And the easiest way to do that is to ask yourself
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if there's anything you're already using that you like that you
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can then just expand this with.
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And then you could also research some CRMs.
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If that's going to be the right move for you.
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We do have a fear of hair of the dog academy
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member. We do have a big spreadsheet of all the different
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CRM software's out there and a comparison of the different features
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they have and what their costs are and all of those
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different things.
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So you can kind of look at it and compare and
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figure out which one might be the best use for you.
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We also are in the midst of putting together.
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It should be out not too long after this errors,
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it'll be coming out in August.
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And that is going to be a dub Sato 1 0
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00:13:03,700 --> 00:13:07,360
1 course inside the hair of the dog academy from Jess,
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00:13:07,360 --> 00:13:07,660
Jessica Watson.
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And it is going to be just able to really help
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you. If you do decide that you want to move forward
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with a CRM,
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especially dip Sato,
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we'll walk you through the process of starting to set that
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up and how to utilize it.
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So pretty excited for that.
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If you're not an academy member,
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go ahead and over to hair of the dog academy.com/academy.
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And if the doors aren't open right now,
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just go ahead and put yourself on the wait list.
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And we will let you know,
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as soon as we open those doors again,
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for all of the goodness inside the academy,
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00:13:35,140 --> 00:13:35,470
all right,
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00:13:35,560 --> 00:13:36,880
but let's get back to our workflow.
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So we figured out what our workflow was.
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We figured out if we need to sorry,
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CRM, or what software we need to now,
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we want to go through this process from the,
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the perspective of our client and maybe from the perspective of
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us. So we're going to go through,
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look at our mapped out workflow from our side and say,
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okay, I understand all these things.
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I understand all these things,
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but then I want you to flip the script and look
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at it from your client's perspective,
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which this can be challenging,
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but I encourage you to try to do that of,
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Hey, I'm coming into this.
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I know nothing.
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What information am I getting when now this can be kind
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of tough for us to do because we have this unconscious
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bias because we know all of the things going on with
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our workflow.
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So we don't realize what a client might not realize because
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we just know it because we're so close to it.
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So one thing that you can do is have a friend
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go through the process or find another pet photographer partner up
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00:14:37,270 --> 00:14:40,270
and have them go through your inquiry process and you go
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00:14:40,270 --> 00:14:41,710
through their inquiry process.
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And that way they can give you feedback on any areas
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that weren't clear.
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00:14:45,700 --> 00:14:49,180
You can get to practice how that all goes together so
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that you can see what's working,
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00:14:50,680 --> 00:14:53,120
what's not working and what you might need to,
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you know,
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rearrange or tweak.
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So that's really the third step for this workflow.
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Pillar is,
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you know,
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to go ahead and go through that and continue tweaking.
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And here's the thing too.
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Our workflow is really never done.
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Just like our website's never really done just like our business
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has never done.
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Just like our style is never done.
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I hope you enjoy the process of running a pet photography
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00:15:18,320 --> 00:15:20,240
business, because that's what it is.
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It's a process and you know,
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we're always improving it.
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00:15:23,810 --> 00:15:27,740
So I don't want you to hold off moving your business
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00:15:27,740 --> 00:15:30,560
forward because you feel like you need to have this like
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00:15:30,590 --> 00:15:33,920
8,000 bells and whistles workflow in place.
427
00:15:33,950 --> 00:15:34,820
Yeah, of course.
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00:15:34,820 --> 00:15:35,600
That would be nice.
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00:15:35,870 --> 00:15:36,320
And yeah,
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00:15:36,410 --> 00:15:36,980
of course,
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00:15:36,980 --> 00:15:39,890
we're going to want to build to that and eventually do
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00:15:39,890 --> 00:15:41,000
something like that,
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00:15:41,180 --> 00:15:42,590
but we don't need to start there.
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00:15:42,800 --> 00:15:44,960
We can start with a really simple,
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00:15:44,990 --> 00:15:48,830
straightforward workflow and then add on as we go.
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00:15:48,890 --> 00:15:51,950
So I hope you guys have found this helpful.
437
00:15:51,950 --> 00:15:53,300
This was a pretty quick one.
438
00:15:53,330 --> 00:15:55,790
It's quick to tell you what to do,
439
00:15:55,790 --> 00:15:57,920
but you might want to put a little bit of time
440
00:15:57,920 --> 00:15:59,330
into actually doing it.
441
00:15:59,360 --> 00:16:02,690
So with that extra like 40 minutes that you probably would
442
00:16:02,690 --> 00:16:05,120
have been listening to this podcast that had been a normal
443
00:16:05,120 --> 00:16:06,200
interview episode.
444
00:16:06,260 --> 00:16:09,560
I want you to go get started on this homework map
445
00:16:09,560 --> 00:16:10,640
out that workflow,
446
00:16:10,880 --> 00:16:13,010
figure out what software you need to use.
447
00:16:13,010 --> 00:16:14,210
Start to put it together.
448
00:16:14,240 --> 00:16:16,580
You look at it from a client perspective and from your
449
00:16:16,580 --> 00:16:20,390
perspective, and then find someone to go through it with you
450
00:16:20,420 --> 00:16:22,760
so that you can actually test it out.
451
00:16:22,820 --> 00:16:23,240
All right,
452
00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:27,500
everybody really appreciate you spending your time with us again this
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00:16:27,500 --> 00:16:31,460
week, I will see you next week for our final pillar,
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00:16:31,490 --> 00:16:32,750
pillar. Number six,
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00:16:32,840 --> 00:16:36,740
marketing in our six pillars of pet photography.
456
00:16:36,830 --> 00:16:37,490
Have a great week.
457
00:16:37,490 --> 00:16:41,000
Everybody. If you enjoy this podcast episode,
458
00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:44,390
go ahead and take a screenshot of this episode on your
459
00:16:44,390 --> 00:16:47,660
phone and post it up there on your Instagram stories and
460
00:16:47,660 --> 00:16:51,170
be sure to tag us at hair of the dog academy.
461
00:16:51,290 --> 00:16:54,830
And we would just love to see how you're listening and
462
00:16:54,830 --> 00:16:55,940
a full disclosure.
463
00:16:56,090 --> 00:16:59,510
Sometimes we just like to give away a little pet photographer,
464
00:16:59,510 --> 00:17:03,350
swag in the form of hair of the dog t-shirts and
465
00:17:03,350 --> 00:17:05,930
sweatshirts. So what are you waiting for?
466
00:17:05,960 --> 00:17:09,080
Go ahead and share that screenshot of this episode.
467
00:17:09,320 --> 00:17:11,480
And don't forget to tag us at hair of the dog
468
00:17:11,480 --> 00:17:13,250
academy. And while you're there,
469
00:17:13,310 --> 00:17:15,560
maybe you want to jump on over to our account and
470
00:17:15,560 --> 00:17:18,530
see what we're up to on the gram would love to
471
00:17:18,530 --> 00:17:19,250
connect with you.
472
00:17:20,210 --> 00:17:22,490
Thanks for listening to the hair of the dog podcast.
473
00:17:22,490 --> 00:17:24,530
If you want to check out the show notes for access
474
00:17:24,530 --> 00:17:26,780
to any of the links that we shared in this episode,
475
00:17:27,050 --> 00:17:29,330
as well as any additional related resources,
476
00:17:29,780 --> 00:17:34,100
simply go to www.hairofthedogacademy.com/
477
00:17:34,130 --> 00:17:35,900
87. Once again,
478
00:17:35,900 --> 00:17:40,430
that's www.hairofthedogacademy.com/the
479
00:17:40,430 --> 00:17:42,050
number eight and the number seven.
480
00:17:43,150 --> 00:17:46,090
Thanks for listening to this episode of hair of the dog
481
00:17:46,120 --> 00:17:48,400
podcast. If you enjoyed this show,
482
00:17:48,610 --> 00:17:50,340
please take a minute to leave a review.
483
00:17:50,520 --> 00:17:51,450
And while you're there,
484
00:17:51,570 --> 00:17:52,920
don't forget to subscribe.
485
00:17:52,980 --> 00:17:56,430
So you don't miss our upcoming episodes on last thing,
486
00:17:56,850 --> 00:17:59,520
if you are ready to dive into more resources,
487
00:17:59,790 --> 00:18:05,160
head over to our website@wwwdothairofthedogacademy.com.
488
00:18:05,490 --> 00:18:08,700
Thanks for being a part of this pet photography community.