CHRISTIAN, WIFE, MAMA,
PHOTOGRAPHER, & PHOTOGRAPHY COACH
Learn How To Grow Your Photography Business to Full Time Income This Year!
One of the biggest complaints I hear from photographers is that they are not booking enough clients, or hardly any at all. We tend to wear too many hats and put so much on our plates that we shutdown. I want you to hear me when I tell you that you were not made to do it all. It’s okay to ask for help! Today, we are going to do a deep dive into the four things you must have in order to truly have a work life balance: boundaries, outsourcing, time blocking and automation.
The key piece of boundaries is learning to say no. That’s really, really hard until you learn how to flex that muscle. In my own business, I used to basically take any client that would roll in. I would say yes to every single person. Then I would be resentful, because I was shooting things that I didn’t necessarily get excited about. I found myself trying to serve all of these people. I just felt burnt out so fast.
Saying no is the first point that I want to bring out to you. You have got to flex saying no if you’re truly going to find balance. Right now you’ve got to decide in this season of my life what your priorities are and what things you are going to say no to. For me, there are seasons where I am saying yes to lots of sports and activities that my kids want to do. It also means I’m going to have to say no to certain things. During my kids busy season, I can only take on one session a month or not a month. That’s three weekends where I’m saying no to the sessions, unless you can book me on designated weeknights. One of the hardest things I had to learn was that when you say yes to something, you, in turn, say no to something else.
You’ve got to set boundaries, and then get an accountability partner like your spouse. Have someone hold you accountable. This could be a spouse, business coach or whatever you want it to be. Set your boundaries, flex your no muscle, get an accountability partner and let the balance begin.
We all have the same 24 hours a day. The thing about time blocking is that we are it’s not necessarily being a slave to your schedule or having to be rigid and not ever do anything on the fly. It’s just it’s supposed to help you really see what dedicated blocks of time you have to do certain things. Before you grab a calendar to get your days organized, you need to think about what’s going into them. I want you to think about what things you’re going to do for every single client? How often is that going to occur? Do you exercise? Are you cooking dinner? Are y’all doing family time? What does all of that look like? Do your kids do extracurricular activities?
I pretty much only time block Monday through Friday. On Saturdays and Sundays, I still use the time blocking principles, but it’s not as rigid. Once you know all the things you absolutely have to do and want to make time for that is where the time blocking comes in. This goes back to boundaries and setting your priorities. You have to know what season you are in. Are you in a season where you are spending the majority of your time with your family and your kids or a season that’s more business driven? Once you know that, you can start creating those blocks of time.
From the time you wake up in the morning to the time you go to bed, I want you to be very realistic with yourself, how much time is it going to take you to do certain things. How will you set up your day? You’ve got to go back to your priorities. What’s your priority in this season? Where is balance needed
The last part of this equation is automation. This is something that is absolutely available to you and is vital to your business and life. I try to automate as much as I possibly can. Think about the things in your business and life that you could throw on automation. This could be something as simple as setting your bills on auto payments. For my business, I have a complete booking system with Iris works, which we have talked about before. Iris works has saved me so much time.
I used to operate my photography business by having to manually do everything. The amount of heaviness that it gave me mentally was ridiculous. Are you nodding your head, because you’re like I do this now and I feel crazy? Well, you don’t have to feel crazy. You just need to put your business on automation. So get a CRM system like Iris works, because it will completely streamline your business. If you want a booming business with more client, then you have got to be prepared and ready for them.
Another way that you can bring automation and balance into your business, specifically with your marketing, is to start planning your social media at least two weeks in advance You can work your way up to having everything done 30 days in advance, but I know that is a really tedious task if you’ve never done this before. I want you to just do the free version for now and test it out. I want you to be able to have an entire two weeks worth of captions written, so you don’t have to feel overwhelmed. There are so many ways that you can automate your life and business, you just need to get creative and figure out what’s available.
So, how do you manage it all? Well, you have to go through these four areas of your life. You have to do it in the order, you’ve got to set your boundaries and priorities. You’ve got to outsource something, even if it’s one thing, get it off your plate. You have to be very diligent with time blocking and using the time that you have to make sure that those are a direct reflection of what your priorities are in this season. Then, you want to automate as much as possible.
I hope that you are breathing a sigh of relief and just understand that no one out there, even the ones you are admiring, desiring to have a business like them, no one is doing at all. I want this to fuel your fire. You can absolutely go through all four of these ar12eas. You were not made to do at all to carry at at all. That is not what you were created for. It’s okay to ask for help. I promise you, your life and business will run smoother than it is right now when you implement these 4 areas yourself.
This post was loaded with info. I would love to hear how this is going to change your business as you pursue more balance. Please keep me updated. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook or here on the blog. I want to hear about it composts in the social selling group.
Want to hear more insider tips on maintaining balance in both your life and business? Just head over to the Book More Clients podcast. You can also find the podcast on iTunes and Spotify
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