When you're first starting out in business, you just want the clients to come through the door right and hand you their credit cards, but there's so much more to operating a business than that and what I'm hoping once you get into wanting develop a baby plan that tells me that your business is not fledgling anymore, you know that you have started do sessions, you're starting to do newborns, you're starting to d'oh, you've done things before, so most people don't start with baby plans if that makes sense. So it tells me that if you're watching this class or if you're here that your business isn't quite at the fledgling beginning stages and that's a critical point because you're now at the stage in your business where you need to develop some systems that create consistency and that's what we're going to talk about here, system's really do keep you sane, okay, everybody goes through the same process in your in your studio, and what that does free is you is it creates a pattern, it create...

s a flow in what you're doing, it creates consistency with the clients experience with you, which in turn creates better customer service, a better experience for the client and a reliable experience for that client to go through your studio from start to finish, then when they refer you the next client behind them that they referred will get the exact same customer service exact same system for them as well and that becomes in essence you're offering to the client that's that's that's your product that's your experience so having systems in place for your studio is what's really going toe take you to the next level in business does that does that make sense so that's important for me to get across its basically a method to the madness if you don't have systems things were scattered you don't really know what you're doing stuff also the cracks mistakes happen and that in turn doesn't reflect well on you is a business ok, so they're repeatable and reliable processes eventually I would love you to be able your business to be ableto hand it over to someone else but it's so systemized do you could essentially gook coffee cup you take my business and handle it you know, saying that's just such a beautiful feeling and now you know I can't speak for my own experiences having systems I can hand over the studio to belinda while I come to events like this and I know that enquiries and people who are calling in enquiring about sessions they're going to get taken care of in the way that I want them to be taken care of in a way that's the same with every single consumer who comes through the door okay? Um it really is becomes a method of management in essence right that's what kind of what I'm saying here so good systems make everything from predictable they prevent mistakes, nothing falls through the cracks or at least it greatly reduces that chance. Of course things happen but the beautiful part about that is if you have a system and something happens like a mistake is made you khun usually backtrack and pinpoint exactly where the problem wass rather than being scattered or confused or not knowing which allows you to fix it faster it allows you to automate your business and I know that sounds like it's such an oxymoron because we talk about having a custom product all the time and custom experience in the audio diatta it is that but in reality if you system isat then you're gonna be able to take that custom experience and apply it to each and every client in a custom way who comes to your studio so and of course the result of that is consistent service and a reliable experience it's for your client. So what kind of systems do you need it there's a little mom juggling her whole life that's my life right there is basically juggling a child and my work life and home life and all that stuff, but and I show that image is just kind of a cute adorable little example but that's how your clients feel juggling their lives and their families but our businesses are our babies and it's the same thing you have to juggle all that and make it work so you need everything almost everything can be put into a system really there are shooting systems okay we've talked a little bit about that when we shot shot the four month old yesterday in the six to seven months old today you can limit the number of backgrounds you can shoot close medium far you can kind of plan your sessions out to create that variety so you're really producing twenty five to thirty five finished images for the client and you don't really need to shoot much more than that if you have high quality variable images give that sense of um for like cents a variety for lack of a better word to the client and then they're going to like that and enjoy it and be proud of the product that you're producing for them they're our client management systems ok especially important the baby plan because this client's going to be with you for the entire year so you have got to make sure that you manage the information for the client including details about their lives in an effective way in a way that you can easily access that information whenever you want so basically a good database of clients that tracks information for you that you can refer to whenever you need okay file management your image files they're heavy with you the entire year, right? So you better be organized and how you number one lay out the file system on your computer but also how you back it all up and use that information because remember you're making a yearlong product for them so you gotta hang on to all those images to do that okay? Financial systems of course bookkeeping, accounting there's all those kind of systems there's marketing systems you can create an entire system in your studio for marketing so it runs by itself and allowed to go really? You could do that? I'd go yeah if you you know, obviously there's gonna be some things that are customized opportunities that come up that don't normally but if you think about it there are annual holidays there's annual stuff that goes on that you khun system isa market for to make your marketing keller run on its own if you put schedules and dates and deadlines for things and different publications you're gonna go into you khun systemized your marketing efforts should you desire you could make one month a month one day a month the day you go out and visit all your displays you can plan for that you can put deadlines for ordering new collateral you could do this stuff to yourself on a calendar isn't a pain in the butt and very tedious and administrative to dio yes but once the system is in place, it's done and you never have to do it again. You just have to tweak it along the way. And that's, what I think is so overwhelming for new business owners is when you start doing this stuff you're like holy cow there's so many large projects to dio just tackle him one at a time and what they're done, they're done content management that for things like your blawg and your facebook and all that stuff, the content that you admit out to the world can be managed and systemized okay, sail systems. You guys all know I love sale systems, okay? Pricing and sales course is a whole course on that one system. Okay? Communication systems. This is huge businesses who don't have communication systems with their customers and clients fall on their faces, and that's communication is one of the key things that customers say they had trouble with when it came to the biz. We're gonna talk about customer service in communication and a little bit they always shocked at some of statistics. I'm going to show you about customer satisfaction and communication. Okay, we are going to focus on just a few of these systems were not going to focus on them all, so keep that in mind. I really wanted to focus on the first three the shooting systems, the client management and the file systems I seriously could do days and days and days and days and days and days and days on systems. Okay, but they're they're critical in any business, really. And I know that right now, when you're first starting out, you don't really think so. But if you set these systems up now, it's going to help you get clients and it's going to help you keep things on check when the time does come that you do have more people coming through your door. So get it in place now. So you're ready for it when it happens.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Customizable BP Postcard Templates

Customizable Recipe Tag Templates

Customizable Stat Card Templates

Baby Plan Images

How The Baby Plan Works

Baby Plan Resource Guide

Baby Plan Success Checklist

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Julia Kelleher

Portrait Photographer, Julia Kelleher, M. Photog., Cr. CPP, specializes in newborn and family portraits out of her boutique, Bend OR, studio. She offers her clients a photographic style that is organic, textural and artistic, and specializes in creating heirloom albums

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topics covered in this class

Business Newborn Photography Digital Photography

Ratings and Reviews

Natalia Malinko

I just finished to watch this course. And I confess: I've been struggled all the time during the viewing to say already: I LOVE IT! So, I LOVE this course! Julia is so nice teacher, and photographer, and person. And she is so incredible organizator of whole child's photography business. She is amazing, so meticulous, so persuasive trough all and each one of the important points of this business. And she is just great in the part of studio´s shooting examples with the babies. This is one of the best and most valuable courses I found in Creative Live, thanks!

Dawn Potter

I've been so fortunate to be able to be a part of the Live audience experience with Julia. She is an amazing person, photographer and teacher. She does a fantastic job of explaining in detail, the steps she has taken that have helped her success as well as the steps that have set her back. We are so lucky to be able to learn from her experiences and to have someone who is willing to put herself out there to teach us and help us to grow as photographers. For anyone considering adding a Baby Plan to their portrait offerings, this class is a MUST have. Julia, you are #awesomesauce !! xoxo - Dawn Potter www.dawnpotterphotography.com

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Creating Efficient Systems

Creating Efficient Systems

Lesson Info

20. Creating Efficient Systems

Lessons

Class Introduction

What is a Baby Plan?

7 Steps to Baby Plan Success

Shooting Prep for the 4-5 Month Old "Smiling Stage"

4-5 Month Olds: Tummy Time and Headshots

4-5 Month Olds: Basket Shot

The Baby Plan Structure

How to Price Baby Plan Sessions

Exclusivity and the Product Line

The Annual State of Mind

Pre-Consultations

The Art of Language

Designing for the Annual Product

Pricing Step-by-Step

How Much Money Do You Need?

Building Packages

Shooting Prep for the 6-8 Month Old "Sitting Stage"

6-8 Month Olds: Chair Shot and Baby Food

6-8 Month Olds: Bucket Shot, Set Design, and Coloring