Anna Mi Tonkin (5:07)
You can do it, and I can show you how. So we are kicking off a brand new month and a brand new series theme here on the podcast. And this one has been one I have been looking forward to in my nerdy little way for quite some time. Because this month we are talking about technology and specifically the technology that runs your photography business. So your software, your tools, your subscriptions, your automations, your workflow, all of it. And this is something that I used to be really intimidated by, really overwhelmed by, and so I forced myself in the beginning to dive into it, and then that became something of an addiction. And I really enjoy the technology side of things now. So it's been, it's been a journey for me. But I do want to be clear about what this theme kind of is and what it isn't. Because I know that when you hear like, oh, we're going to be talking about tech, oftentimes those kinds of podcast episodes or YouTube channels or whatever, they kind of go in one of two directions. They either turn into like a product roundup where I'm telling you, you know, here are the tools that I love and use. Go buy these things, or they turn into this big deep dive that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and like you need to kind of burn your whole setup to the ground and start over. And neither of those is what I am going for here. What this theme was designed to be is really about intention. So tech is supposed to make your life easier, it's supposed to make your business easier. But for a lot of photographers, it can do the opposite. Or at least at times it can do the opposite. Right? Too many tools, too many subscriptions, too many half built systems, those things can add up to more friction than freedom. And the reason that happens isn't because the tools are bad. It's because we've never really stepped back and looked at our tech through that lens of intention. So over the next four weeks, that's what I'm hoping to help you do. And we're going to start by reframing how you think about your tech in the first place. So let's bring this back to something concrete. I think most photographers have a schema, a mental map for what their tech is. And that schema goes something like, my tech is a list of tools that I use to run my business. Right? My CRM is over here, My gallery platform is over here. My email marketing tool is somewhere. You know, that's, it's like an inventory list, a collection of separate things that you buy or subscribe to solve separate problems. And that mental map kind of shapes how you use those tools, right? It also shapes how you evaluate new tools when you're thinking like, does this solve my current problem? It shapes how you spend money because you have a problem and you're like, I need a solution, let me go find it. And it can shape how you feel about your setup. I am a chronic, 30 plus tabs open in any given browser window person. And so there's always this like vague sense of chaos. It works for me. But you know, we all have our different experience of that. So here's the reframe that I kind of want to offer. Your tech isn't A list, it is a system. And that difference matters because a list is something you manage, whereas a system is something that you design, or as I said, something that designs itself around your habits if you're not paying attention. So the schema shift that I want to help all of us make today is going from what tools do I have to what system have I built and is it actually working for me? Because once you start to really see your tech as part of your system, you can start making more intentional choices about it. And until you do, you're just kind of adding and subtracting tools from that list and hoping that your result improves. So let me give you a useful framework for thinking about where your tech lives in your business. Every business runs on, you know, the three systems that I've talked about many, many times, right? Marketing, sales, and fulfillment. You're attracting clients, you're converting them during your sales process, and then you're delivering the experience that you promised them during that fulfillment process. And your tech shows up in all three of those layers, whether you realize it or not. Your marketing tools are things like your email platform, your scheduling tool, your social media workflow, you know, whatever you use to plan and create content. Those are your marketing tech tools. They're how you stay visible, stay consistent, and get people to raise their hands. Your booking and communication tools are going to be things like your CRM, your contact forms, your contract and invoicing system, your client portal. Those are the conversion layer. And that's what happens between I'm interested and I've signed on the dotted line. And then you've got your delivery tools. That's your gallery platform, your editing software, your delivery and communication workflow. Those are your fulfillment layer and they're what your clients actually experience after they've said yes. Now here's something that I have noticed in working with photographers and looking at my own business, and that is the attraction system is where most tool accumulation tends to happen, right? Marketing tools are everywhere. They're constantly being talked about and the problems that they promise to solve, things like visibility, consistency, content creation, they are problems that we as photographers feel acutely. So we sign up for things, we try them, we add them to the list. And because marketing is an ongoing and ever evolving thing that doesn't have a clean beginning and end the way your sales system does and your fulfillment system does, it's easy for your tools to accumulate, right, to pile up without ever being re evaluated after you sign up the first time. So that's your marketing system tech system, your Conversion system, your sales system gets the most attention because obviously that's where the money feels most visible, right? So we have to have a little bit more structure to the tech in our sales system. So that's again, your CRM, your contracts, your inquiry response. And most people, I think, once they get a system set up, do use that more consistently because it's a pretty straightforward and relatively short workflow. And then the fulfillment system is where your tech has the most sort of noticeable client impact once someone has booked, right? So that's where your biggest client experience opportunities are hiding. But because it happens after the money has already come in, it sometimes gets treated more like an afterthought. So none of these systems is more important than the others. But knowing where your tech lives can help you figure out where the system actually needs work. And that is where this idea of tech debt comes in. I didn't make that term up. I'm borrowing it from the software world, where it refers to the cost that you pay over time when you build something fast and messy instead of building it more intentionally. And in your business, that tech debt tends to show up in a couple of ways. The obvious first way is financial, right? You're paying for things that you either don't use, or you're paying for multiple tools that overlap. So that's money that goes out of your business every month for value that you're not fully taking advantage of. But the less obvious issue there, and honestly the kind of bigger issue, is cognitive and operational. Every tool in your system requires a certain amount of, like, mental admin, right? Mental overhead. You have to remember how it works. You have to remember where to log in. You have to maintain it. When something breaks or gets updated, you have to deal with it. You're getting on with customer service. And when you have a system that was accumulated rather than one that you designed, you end up with a lot of redundant overhead, right? Things like two tools doing the same thing, or gaps between tools that you end up filling with manual work or workflows that exist mostly out of habit. And that's the thing about tech debt. You don't feel it all at once. You feel it in these little drips and drabs and moments of friction throughout your day and your week, right? It's the thing that takes three steps when it should take one, or the thing you always forget. And you always have to go back and fix that email template that you edit every single time because there's a typo. Instead of just going back and fixing the template itself. None of these are a crisis, but they do tend to add up and cause us time and energy that we didn't need to spend on that. This is actually the reason that I built a whole tech and subscriptions table inside the Photographer's business dashboard. If you're not familiar with that, it's one of, I was going to say it's one of the courses that I offer, but it's unlike any of the other courses in that it's more of a template that comes with a pretty heavy duty dose of instructions. It I built it in airtable and it you get the template and then you learn how to sort of implement and customize the template and in so doing you learn a lot about airtable. So that's kind of a side note, but one of the tables inside of airtable, or inside of this particular airtable base is called Tech and Subscriptions. And what I built it originally for myself, before I was ever teaching this course, because I needed a way to actually see everything I was paying for all in one place, especially things that were subscriptions, but even just software that I was using that I was paying for annually or once because a lot of it was overlapping, a lot of it was renewing without me sort of paying attention to it. So what I ended up doing was I built this table that holds all of those subscriptions and tech tools, login information, all that sort of stuff. And I kind of hardwired it with automations that remind me before any subscription renews, I have a place in there where I say, I like this software, I am open to replacing this software. Or like, I hate this software and I'm actively looking to replace it. And if it's either of the last two before it renews, it gives me a month. And it's like, hey, you said you wanted to replace this software. Make sure you cancel it and it's time to go find something else. So instead of discovering after the fact that I got charged for another year of something I'm not using, I get a nudge ahead of time when I still have the chance to make a decision. And that sounds simple and it is simple. But having that one view where I can see every tool, what I'm paying for it, whether it's monthly or annual, what it's actually for and when it renews has saved me a meaningful amount of money and mental energy. Because the problem with accumulated tech debt is partly financial. But like I said, it's also just that you can't make good decisions about something you can't clearly see. And I do want to clarify, because I think there's a version of this conversation that makes people feel like they need to go rebuild their entire tech stack from scratch. And that is not what I'm saying. The goal here isn't a perfect system. A perfect system, a perfect tech stack does not exist. Right? They're always evolving. It's always changing. So the goal isn't perfect. The goal here is truly just intention. So there's a simple question that separates a tool that fits your business from one that doesn't. And that is, does this tool work the way that I work or work the way that I think, or am I constantly working around it? And I think the best example that I can give of this, if you are like, I am a planner person, there's like a lifelong search for the perfect planner, right? We're all out there looking for a planner that kind of helps us plan our day or our week or our quarter or whatever in the way that our brain meshes with. So a tool that fits feels like it will save you time and brain power. You know, it's the thing that you'll actually use, because using it is easier than not using it. When something goes wrong, you are just mildly annoyed, not panicking, versus a tool that doesn't fit, which always feels like maintenance. You're always catching up on it. You got it because somebody recommended it, or it looked good in a demo, or it had features that you theoretically wanted. But in practice, you're working around it more than working with it. And this is not something to beat yourself up about. It's literally required. You have to try things. And you know, how many of us have bought a sweater at the store that looked so cute at the time, and then you kind of barely wore it, and two or three years later, you're cleaning out your closet and you're like, I need to just go ahead and donate. Donate this thing. And I feel bad about it. We beat ourselves up about these things. Obviously, you want to try to avoid that. But again, when it comes to technology, there are things you're just going to have to, like, sign up for the trial on and check it out, see if it works the way that you do. So sometimes the mismatch is the tool itself, because it genuinely doesn't fit your workflow or your brain. Sometimes it's that you bought a tool for a stage of business that you are either past or not yet in. And sometimes it's just that you never really set it up properly. So you know, it was never given a fair chance to work for you. The point is, before you go shopping for something new, it really is worth getting honest about whether the things that you already have are actually working the way that they're supposed to. So it's more fun to go find the shiny new thing, but sometimes fixing the thing that we already have is the better way to go. So how do you move from an accumulated system to a more intentional one? I hope that the answer does not require blowing everything up. I really do believe that it starts with just a single honest audit. Making a list of every tool that you're currently paying for or regularly using and asking basically three questions about each one. So first, you know, what is this tool for? Not what it can do, but what you are using it for in your business right now. So what is the tool for? Second, am I actually using it for that? Is it doing the job? And then third, is there something else in my tech stack that is either doing the same job or doing something similar, better, cheaper, or both? And that's it, right? You don't have to make any big commitments at this stage. You're just getting a clear picture of what you have and what it's doing or not doing for you. Most photographers who do this find a few obvious wins pretty quickly. So you can cut something because you're not using it. You can cut something because it overlaps with another tool. You find a tool that you paid for a while ago and forgot to ever set up, so you can actually start to speed things up. But you also can start to think about your overall tech system and whether your approach to marketing or sales or fulfillment is being properly supported. But you can't see those questions clearly, or you can't see the answers to those questions clearly until you first understand what it is that you're working with. So that's how I want to kick off this month of thinking about technology, right? And if you can find 15 minutes or 20 minutes this week to do this is going to really make this whole month much more actionable for you. Open a blank document or a note on your phone or whatever, if you happen to own the photographer's business dashboard, or if you're curious to sign up, you can do it in there. It's a great place to do it. And then go check your credit card statement, your emails, you know, bank statements, whatever, to find all of the charges for those subscriptions that are coming through. Or just like think through your typical workday, right? Write down every single tool that you are currently paying for or regularly using in your business. And again, just the list. You don't have to do anything with that just yet because you can't design a better system until you know what the system is that you currently have in place. And I promise you, just making that list will tell you something. Okay, so that's basically it. That is what I want you to do this week. I want you to open a blank document or a note on your phone and list out every tool that you are currently paying for or regularly using in your business. You can check your email for subscription related emails, you can look at your bank statements or your credit card statements or just think through your typical workday. Right? You just want to kind of make the list. That's the whole action step. Because you can't design a better system until you know what the system that you currently have actually includes. And I promise you that just making that list is probably going to tell you something. And if you want a ready made home for that list and a place to track all these renewal dates and stuff like that is exactly what the tech and subscriptions table inside the business dashboard does. You can find that at this can't bethard.com dashboard. But again, even if you're just starting with a note on your phone, that's the step. The point is to see what you're actually working with because next week we are going to go deeper on how to make decisions about your tech once you know what you have. So specifically I want to talk about the pros and cons of the the all in one software versus the kind of best in class for each specific task. And I feel like that comes up for almost all of us at some point. But the list is step one. So that's it for this week. I know this was kind of a quick episode and may not have felt like a whole lot, but we are setting ourselves up to make some big strides in the way that your business runs and I for one am looking forward to it. Have a great week.
