Lessons

Lesson Info

How to Organize Your Year/Month/Week/Day

00:00:02.08 --> 00:00:06. So when I'm planning my business I take into account 00:00:06.5 --> 00:00:10. all of these things my big picture annually monthly 00:00:11.01 --> 00:00:12. weekly and daily 00:00:13.61 --> 00:00:17. so what does that look like annually I am setting 00:00:17.25 --> 00:00:19. goals for my number of clients that I want and it 00:00:19.51 --> 00:00:23. isn't just goals but like a very specific number because 00:00:23.03 --> 00:00:25. I know my family portrait are going to take me approximately 00:00:25.46 --> 00:00:28. one week's worth of work so I'm not going to book 00:00:28.4 --> 00:00:31. more than forty two family clients because if I d'oh 00:00:31.36 --> 00:00:34. then that's going to deter their experience with me 00:00:34.85 --> 00:00:38. or um yeah it's just goingto dampen that for them 00:00:39.08 --> 00:00:42. and so I'm very clear on how many clients I can have 00:00:42.61 --> 00:00:46. every year what my target income is based on the average 00:00:46.

35 --> 00:00:47. sales that I get 00:00:48.24 --> 00:00:51. I'm going to have an annual concept of what I want 00:00:51.71 --> 00:00:55. for my block so that when somebody's coming to it 00:00:55.1 --> 00:00:57. maybe like in two years they khun see okay there is 00:00:57.48 --> 00:01:00. some growth here and it's a value to me to follow 00:01:00.1 --> 00:01:04. this professional growth I want to be intentional 00:01:04.05 --> 00:01:07. about making goals for professional growth in february 00:01:07.21 --> 00:01:10. I made a goal a five year goal of speaking on creative 00:01:10.1 --> 00:01:13. lives and so I started to take steps towards becoming 00:01:14.78 --> 00:01:17. the type of person that there what here whatever I 00:01:17.65 --> 00:01:18. thought that wass 00:01:19.73 --> 00:01:23. and somehow I got here in eight months but I am very 00:01:23.99 --> 00:01:27. intentional about my professional growth and my big 00:01:27.28 --> 00:01:28. goals for myself 00:01:30.58 --> 00:01:33. so when you're clear on your big goals, it's much 00:01:33.47 --> 00:01:36. more easy to identify the difference between an opportunity 00:01:36.93 --> 00:01:41. opportunity and a distraction. Um, in january, I received 00:01:41.13 --> 00:01:43. an email from a photographer who I often cross surfer 00:01:43.28 --> 00:01:46. from he had decided to kind of step back a little 00:01:46.64 --> 00:01:48. bit from his company, make it less full time and get 00:01:48.77 --> 00:01:53. a full time job. And so he offered to sell me a good 00:01:53.23 --> 00:01:56. chunk of his business, which involved college photos 00:01:56.15 --> 00:01:58. like their school photos at the beginning of the year 00:01:58.45 --> 00:02:01. and the grad photos and and that's like for all of 00:02:01.61 --> 00:02:04. the, like bible colleges in our area. So, like three or four schools, and at first I was like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe this, and then I was like, wait, this isn't my target market at all, and if I were to have accepted that opportunity, then I wouldn't have had the time and energy to do the things that got me two creative life because I would have been so focused on that job and, like it's, a big job in the springtime, um, I wouldn't have had time to do the things that I was doing in order to get here, not that I knew I would be here, but you know what I mean? Um, so, in business planning monthly, I have a list of things that I need to do. So I just threw a couple up here. I review my taxes every single month. I write my weekly blog's once a month and then automate them to go out again, so that each month can have an overall feeling tone to them. Um, I have one mentoring meeting each month for me, meeting with my own mentors, and I monitor my goals. So at the beginning of each month I should say I'll look at this list and say ok, when is this gonna happen um and schedule that into my upcoming month so then I don't have to think about it it's just already there in my calendar and I know okay and that's when I need to be doing that ah my weekly won every single week I create a schedule for my week on dh I in that I include one than one networking so whether that's, another photographer in the city or a wedding industry expert whatever that's going to look like I'm networking with somebody who will grow my my business I have one block go out but again like I mentioned that's usually automated I have a company meaning and usually that's just me but it has to happen like you're running a company you're the ceo you were the market or you have to be on top of what's going on and uh I mean, if I I want to eventually like expand my company so I know all the hats that have to be warned within the company and I know okay when I heard somebody on it's likely going to be in this position but I already need tohave my company meetings down so that when they come in they are ready to roll and I'm ready to roll and I recently saw an article that said the number one reason people leave cos is because of their direct manager whoever is right above them so you need to have your stuff together if you're going toe be expanding and even if you're not like it's just going to keep on top of things I confirm my backups and again that's just like crossing all the t's and dotting the I's usually I have that within my system but in the case that something's happened I just need to make sure that that's done and my book keeping which again seventeen hats is like totally streamlined for me and I never used to do it I was one of those photographers that just kind of avoided it but it's actually super easy now and daily every single morning I feel in my daily plan based on what's going on as soon as I've done that I do my email for twenty five minutes I have twenty five minutes for social media and I review my day and anticipate tomorrow so there's other things that happened every single day and um and I decide when that's going to happen usually very first thing in the morning so this is the schedule that I showed you earlier you can see all of my work blocks I'm going to just cover some of the things that would fall within what would be considered a work block so my photo shoots consultation ordering appointment mentor sessions with other photographers around north america. Uh my client work so whether that's editing, album design, preparing for a meeting, anything like that. Blogged or newsletter prepping for speaking engagements. Update website. I like tio have that on the list because it's, so easy to go like a year or two years and just think, I'll do that tomorrow. But it's really important to keep your current work up on your website and if anything is dated, like, oh, booking for two thousand thirteen now and it's like two thousand fifteen, you need to be on top of updating that marketing, financial, social media. So those are the things that all look at during my planning time and decide ok what happens has to happen today um I mentioned that I have five minute breaks so I have no technology my five minute breaks I'm at my computer most of the day or behind a camera I just want five minutes during which I can step back go outside like not like a screen and just really give my brain a break and stop consuming and just start living basically so I go outside when I can again I live in canada so maybe not in the winter but I know like a five minute brisk walk in the middle of winter could be nice and refreshing I stretch if I don't have time to go to the gym then I'll do five minute walks or runs and again that might sound crazy but I'll just like we're I'll work in my workout gear and then as soon as my buzzer goes I'll go for a five minute walk and run and then come back and you do that like three times a day or four times a day you've gone for twenty minute run maybe not all at once but but if I'm doing that my very first one is always stretching and um if it's winter and I want to stay inside I do stuff inside I could make a personal call or it's also awesome for laundry and dishes if you work out of your home and you have to pack. Uh, and you don't know when you're gonna have time to do it in your five minute breaks. So this is a quote from new york times from two thousand eleven, and this is about, ah, a businessman who decided to go into full business for himself and it's just about like the overwhelmed that he felt within his company. So in january twelve in january, after twelve years in software, he quit to devote himself full time to his online store, creative with clay, which sells stone where he designs and makes now, instead of spending his time his free time absorbed in visions of clay, he spends as much as seventy percent of his day on administration he's not only his own boss, he is his own accountant, his own sales director, marketing manager and shipping clerk. That leaves little time to enjoy the hobby he loves, so none of us really go into business for ourselves to spend our time doing that we do it because we're passionate about what we're creating, whether that's, pottery or photography, or maybe your makeups makeup artist, you're a clown, whatever it is, we do it because we love what we're doing in what we're creating, not because we love these things, so I'm going to spend a little bit of time moving into how to automate your business, but before I do that, I wanted to ask, are there any questions about organizing? No oh yeah go ahead you know uh it sounds like that in your message we should be practicing how we want to be performing so to speak so whether we're a company of one potentially a company of twenty um by automating and having these tasks plastic practicing it within ourselves early on when we're small this so important so that way when we do experience business growth we know how to segment or break out certain portions of it to allow that duty to happen but the performance continues to happen and the expectations there exactly okay so I actually got that concept from a creative live talk that I watched and I want to say that it was um dunkin melanie duncan's husband um I'm totally forgetting his first name devon devon duncan it might have been a guest speaker into his class on dh he talked about as when you're starting a company make a company tree so list everything like the ceo director of marketing director like all of these things accounting, shipping all of them on it and then also say like under the director of marketing what falls under that so like your social media coordinating and all of those things and maybe you're name is going to be all over that completely but at least then when you bring somebody else in and hire them you can see exactly where you want them to fit and then you can show them and they'll understand okay right now I fit here and right now you're the one above me but maybe in the future that I'll change and they'll still understand where they fit within that structure that was really good for me because it's so easy to just think like oh it's just me I don't to be like that much organized in the structure of my business but I think it's really important in terms of first of all seeing yourself as a business owner and as a ceo um because who knows like if you have goals to take a bigger then why not start envisioning that now and working towards it it'll just save a lot of time well it kind of in relation to that with regard to your weekly meeting with yourself what does that look like beyond just you know you're you're taking time already to organize yourself and so are you like today right now I'm going to talk to myself about marketing and then after that we'll talk but what does that look like yeah so it would be just checking in to make sure that my social media plans are going as planned like if I have a facebook at campaign running I can then go and check in on it and c okay um is there anything that I need to risk reassess here which is something like if I'm the ceo of a company I'm gonna be asking my social media director hey how's this going like just checking in with them on that so it might sound a little bit like multiple personalities but like that's the easiest way to explain it is like think of um okay how are my target's going and my on target for my annual projected profits and or looking at the products that I'm offering is there something that nobody's even interested in buying because if there is I should swap that out with something else that might be of more interest to my clients so just constantly reassessing and to do that once a week instead of like figuring out when during my day I'm going to do that it's just good to have that consistency because that's another really easy thing to put off and just be like I'll do that next week did you have another question? One more question as faras when when you're management business as yourself and you're the captain of your own ship so speak at what point in in that journey into what you're trying to accomplish in business ah by you mentioned networking earlier that you reach out to say piers or other people to get feedback on what you're doing so that way you can kind of for people who are safe photographers be able to get self feedback knowing this is the right journey for me or I'm going about this the right way or maybe gathering information for being more efficient are you asking if that's all I'm asking is that something that's really important can you touch on? My networking is more about if I see another wedding professional who either a venue or a wedding coordinator or makeup artist somebody that I would love to connect with just so we can cross refer and work together and do collaborations together stylized shoots, it's really good to just like, hey, I'm hannah marie, I'm a photographer in town I'd love to take you out for lunch and then not even talk about like my own business necessarily, but get to know them on a personal level and build that report because the more people within the wedding industry in my own city who know me, then the more I know damn it because then if somebody then goes to book a makeup artist and they're like, oh yeah, we hard hannah marie and she can be like, oh, she's awesome! I love her like we go out for lunch and it reassures my client that they made a good decision, whereas if they're like naming all these other vendors and they know everyone except for me like that's not very good so in terms of networking that's more my intention in terms of reassessing my company with mentors that would happen during like my higher up mentoring session teo reassess my company