A (0:00)

Hey guys, if you've been tuning in over the past few weeks, you know that I have done a series on the concept of sustainability, and if you're listening to it in real time, first of all, Happy New Year. The reason that I have put this series here at this time is because I think that the new year is the perfect time to look at the sustainability of your business, how it has been performing over the past year, and and what you want to take with you into the new year. So for this final episode of the series, I've got something special for you. I've actually put together a private podcast series that's kind of an extension of this sustainability series. And what I'm sharing today is actually the first episode in that private podcast series. It's only five episodes long, it's not super huge, but it made sense to put it together as something that you go and listen to on its own as opposed to extending this series in the podcast podcast. Mostly because I wanted you to kind of be able to binge these episodes and I wanted to make them available all at one time. So I'm going to let you listen to this first episode and figure out whether the rest of the episodes are something that you want or need. But at the end, if you do decide that you want to listen to the rest, you can go grab those@this can't bethard.com sustainability welcome to this Can't Be that Hard.

B (1:29)

My name is Anna Mi Tonkin, and I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it, and I can show you how.

A (1:56)

Running a business requires skill, organization, and commitment. And although you may not feel particularly skilled or organized when you first start out with enough commitment, I fully believe that anyone can learn and master the skills and organizational tools that they need to be successful. The trick is that those skills and organizational tools you need, they evolve as your business grows. It's like the old saying goes, what got you here won't get you there. When the number of clients that you're working with is small, below your max capacity, time is on your side. You don't need to be as organized, and you can afford to take your time with those skills. The danger is that we tend to let our businesses get ahead of our capacity, and that's why it's important to pay attention when things start to feel overwhelming. Now, don't get me wrong, running a business isn't always going to be easy, right? Plans go awry, clients get upset, technology fails. An organization will certainly help in these instances, but they can't make everything always go according to plan. What shouldn't feel hard though, is your normal everyday business. If a bad weather system hasn't rolled in and forced you to, you know, reschedule six sessions in a single weekend, if your computer isn't crashing, if nothing is actively on fire, the day to day operations of your business should be easy. Because when something does go wrong, you need to have the time and capacity to handle it. All of this reminds me of my journey with cooking. So my love for cooking started when I was in college and before I had kids. I loved tackling big cooking projects. So if there was a recipe that called for chicken stock, I would spend the day making stock from scratch, dialing it in to have exactly the flavor profile that I wanted. It was a hobby, so I had the ability to let it expand and contract depending on, you know, my mood and availability. When I had kids though, I quickly realized that something was going to need to change. I wanted to continue cooking not only because I liked it, but because making healthy meals that my family enjoyed was important to me. But I knew that I was going to have to find some shortcuts, ways to streamline the process, because if I didn't, I was never going to be able to keep up with the day to day demands of putting food on the table. And it's kind of like our photography businesses, right? They're like big recipes with lots of ingredients. And when most of us start, we can take the time to do everything from scratch. Either because we want to build our skills, or because we believe that made from scratch is better. Or maybe because we're just figuring it all out and we're not even aware that those shortcuts are out there. And fair enough. There are definitely good lessons to be learned when you're doing everything yourself. That learning process is valuable as you build your basic skills and figure out how you want to run your business. But the learning process doesn't need to go on and on and on. I see so many photographers doing things in their businesses that they don't love. And even things they're not great at. Sometimes because they don't know that there are resources out there that could take those things off their plates. Sometimes because they think no one and nothing could possibly run their businesses like they do. But honestly, most of the time, the issue is just inertia because finding good shortcuts and substitutes takes time and it can feel risky. If we go back to that recipe metaphor, not all boxed chicken stock is created equal, right? Over the years, I've found some substitutes and shortcuts that work for me in the kitchen. In fact, I found some that I think have actually improved my results. But I've also had some less than great experiences that ranged from disappointing to, you know, let's throw this out and order a pizza. And of course there are certain shortcuts that I've learned I don't want to take with where it's worth it to me to put the time in, either because I just enjoy the process or because the time trade off is worth the results. Take black beans for instance. I have yet to find canned beans that come even close to the ones that I make in the slow cooker. And although dry beans take me some time to plan ahead, they don't actually take that much active time. Now obviously there are a lot of ingredients in the recipe of a business, but in this series I'm going to cover the big four Admin, marketing, post processing, and sales. Those are the areas where most photographers can use some combination of outsourcing, automating, systematizing and or batching to save themselves a ton of time and headaches without compromising the quality of their final product. But before we dive in, let's talk about the differences in the solutions that I'm sharing. Outsourcing is where you hire someone else to do the work for you. And although outsourcing can be expensive, when you're ready for it, it's a game changer. You're spending money to save time and you're getting the benefit of someone else's expertise. It's kind of like hiring a sous chef to come in and do all of your prep work for you. Then there's automation. With automation, you're still required to be the expert, but you're utilizing the power of tools to implement your expertise. Like the difference between trying to whip egg whites by hand versus in a stand mixer. And what's great about that is that if there's something that you love or feel strongly about doing, like being the person to write all the emails that go out to your clients, you can still retain that level of control, but you can make it much, much faster and easier thanks to technology. Then there's systems. Systems are the recipes that you use for those multi step processes in your business, and they're great for making even the most complex jobs easy to repeat without having to think too much about it. Even if you've made a cake 100 times and you don't think you need the recipe, all you have to forget is a teaspoon of baking powder and you will be putting candles in a pancake. By creating and following recipes in your business, you'll get predictable, great results each and every time. Finally, there's batching. Batching is the busy business owner's equivalent of meal prepping. You set aside a big chunk of time, you get a whole bunch of work done all in one go, so that later all you have to do is hit publish. Or, you know, in the case of meal prepping, warm it up in the oven. These four strategies all have their place, and which one you choose is going to depend on a variety of factors, all of which I'm going to cover as we go. My hope with this series is that I can help you think about your business, how it went this past year and how you want it to go in the future. And then we're going to take inventory of all the ingredients that make up your business, and from that list, identify where you could make things easier on yourself. The goal is to lighten the load and get you to a place where you truly enjoy the majority of the work that you're doing.