3 Tips for Managing Your Photography Business
Setting out on your own and building a business can be an incredibly rewarding adventure.
Of course, it can be extremely scary, too!
There's a lot on a professional photographer's plate, from the obvious tasks of developing solid photography skills and marketing the business to all those little things that add up over the course of the day to eat away at your time.
I found that when I started my business that I focused so much of my attention on the "big things" - branding, developing price lists and product offerings, and perfecting my technical photography skills - that I had little time to manage all those little tasks like responding to emails, keeping a laser-focused calendar, and setting long-term goals.
And guess what?
Those seemingly innocuous daily tasks are every bit as important!
With that in mind, here's three sure-fire ways to manage your business more effectively.
Don't Let Your Inbox Overflow
Perhaps the last thing on your mind when you're trying to get your photography business off the ground is your email.
The problem with that is that in your email might be questions from potential clients, or better yet, solid leads for clients.
No one enjoys waiting around for a response from someone they've reached out to contact. So, do yourself a favor and respond to emails right away (or as quickly as humanly possible).
Telling yourself that you'll respond later just doesn't work. And if you're like me, if you read a message and it's no longer bolded in your inbox like a new message is, it will get buried in your inbox, and you'll likely not find it for another week when it's too late.
The last thing you want is to send a message that you aren't reliable. Instead of letting little things like reading and responding to emails in a timely fashion derail your success, set aside time every morning, afternoon, and evening to check your email and respond.
This doesn't have to take up hours and hours of your day, either.
If you can get on top of the email situation and be good about responding (and managing and deleting spam as it comes in), your inbox will be neat and tidy, and it will only take you a few minutes several times a day to send out responses.
Reading and sending emails isn't the sexiest of daily tasks, but it's better to attend to it than to ignore it and potentially lose a ton of clients!
Get a few ideas for being more organized in the video above from Entrepreneur Magazine.
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Maintain (and Know) Your Calendar
This is another task that seems so simple and mundane, yet so many photographers fall victim to disorganization.
For example, let's assume a potential client calls you to book a session, and they ask what times you have available.
Just imagine the impression they will get about you and your business if your response is, "I don't know" or "let me get back to you."
Now, this isn't to say that you have to memorize your yearly calendar and be able to recall every single thing on it at a moment's notice.
However, what you should be able to do is know your schedule for the next few days well enough to let them know what times might be available in the short-term.
But another issue that can arise if you don't maintain your calendar is double-booking.
As unprofessional as it is to tell someone you're not sure what times are available, it's doubly worse when two clients show up at the same time.
And if we're talking about calendar problems, imagine how impressed a client would be if they show up for their session and you don't...
In other words, maintaining and knowing your calendar is a lot like keeping your inbox in check. You need to make it a daily routine to look at your calendar, understand what's going on and when, and when you have time to schedule new clients.
Not only will this help you build a professional reputation, but it will also enable you to be more organized and efficient with your time.
Need a calendar app? Check out a few suggestions from The Verge in the video above.
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Set Long-Term Goals
Where keeping up with your inbox and maintaining your calendar are more short-term tasks, you can't ignore the long-term, either.
A great way to map out your success is to set long-term goals and check in on your progress toward meeting them periodically throughout the year.
And I'm not talking about goals like "I want to be a better photographer."
Set tangible, measurable goals that deal specifically with your business.
Maybe you have a goal that you make a certain amount of profit by a certain date.
Perhaps you have a goal of bringing on 5 new clients a month.
Maybe you decide that by the year's end you'll have mastered a specific post-processing method.
Whatever you decide to do, write it down, outline any baby steps you need to take along the way to achieve the goal, and do a periodic check-in on your progress.
Will you achieve every goal you set for yourself? Doubtful. But you certainly won't achieve your goals if you don't think about them in the first place!
