What do I do during my slow season – Part Three

Once you have updated your website, you’ve updated your blog, and you have done some networking, it’s a great time to send some of that work to your favorite vendors. I recommend creating some smaller galleries to highlight each vendor and give those to your favorite vendors’ ones you would love to work with again. I use Pic-Time to do this, but there are several other great options.  This will keep you top of mind in case they ever need a photographer. Many vendors never get to see the images of their hard work, and when you show up and offer to give those images to them, no strings attached, it will be HUGE for how they remember you.

Workflow Systems?

Lastly, how is that onboarding process for brides and grooms? How is it when somebody inquires with you?  Are you constantly writing the SAME EXACT emails, or do you have that system down with a workflow? Now is the time, if you haven’t thought about your workflows in awhile to do so. The more you can automate things, the easier running your business will be. Tighten up those systems. Once you get those workflows on lock, you will have more time to focus on the more important parts of your business for growth.

Google Canned Responses is a great resource to speed up any workflow

Pixifi is my CRM that allows me to create workflows and assign them to each client. It automatically sends emails for me based on the workflow. Check out my blog post about Pixifi – https://sarahreneestudios.com/behind-biz-pixifi/

Other great options include: Honeybook, Tave, 17 Hats, Dubsado

Self-Care

This is one of the MOST Important and most OVERLOOKED steps – take some time to do something you love, travel, read a book, do something that gets you back to you, and maybe drive into some personal work, even doing something completely different than your normal wedding workflow. Why? This can refresh you as an artist, refuel your creativity, put a spring back in your step, and get you out of the RUT of the day-to-day. This is also a fantastic time to focus on education and working on that online class you have put on the back burner (You know we all do it, guilty!) 

Have an ongoing IDEA List or to-do List

During the entire year, I keep a constant, ever-growing list of Ideas, to-dos, thoughts, etc. I create a list of things that I would like to get done when I have more time, so that when the offseason rolls around, and it’s February, I can look at a list that I made in maybe August. Then I can see what I was thinking or what I wanted to get done, but because I was too busy, I couldn’t. 

It’s just nice to have that list available, and I can decide whether or not I should do it. Sometimes I nix the to-do I jotted down. Sometimes the story or thought takes me back, and it becomes the perfect blog post or an Instagram caption. But it’s just nice to have that list and know that I’m keeping it and gathering it throughout the year to look back on in my slower months for inspiration. 

Well, those are my tips. I hope some of them sparked a chord with you and help you in your slower months to plan things out and create a thriving and sustainable photography business.