As creatives, many times it is hard to place focus on organization rather than creating images. Without organization your life can become chaotic and disruptive to your workflow. A few tips to help take back your space and your sanity could mean the difference between booking or losing your next client.
Dedicated Space
Keeping up with the business end and balance in a photographers life isn't always as easy as it looks. I have learned over the years the space that works for someone next door does not necessarily work for me. I had to come up with my own space that was functional to my workflow. Pretty flowers and a typical Instagram post desk was great for others. But I needed a spot that was more in turn with how I moved and edited. I took over the guest room in my house instead of having my office in my downtown studio. While the studio was great to leave work at work, there was too much disruption with foot traffic wanting to come in during the day. I am now appointment only which allows me to move my editing and computer space back into the house. This space is closed off from the rest of my house in order to still maintaining that feeling of leaving work, while giving me the freedom to work around my kids school schedules. In the years in a previous home a guest room was not an option so I used a screen room divider to separate the family space from my work space.
Jennifer Smith uses her space as client reveals as well. Her images work for two key points. First it shows off her portfolio and second it shows the client size ranges for ordering.
Image with permission and courtesy of Jennifer Smith
Workflow
Keeping up to date with your specials running, client orders, and leads do not have to be overwhelming. For years I have used Colorvale session planner and workflow. It helps me to maintain organized records of where my clients sit in my workflow. Are they leads? Did they place an order? Have they signed their contracts? Did they sign a model release? If your workflow is preferred in digital form, keeping a simple excel spreadsheet works to keep you organized. For those of us worried about losing all data, you can use paper format and then add it into your software. Hire an intern to do this for you so you can utilize your time efficiently.
Jennifer Smith keeps a folder system to organize new clients from start to finish. Four folders separate where her clients are in her workflow. As a visual person, she feels this is the right fit to keep her organized and on task. She uses a contact and order form for each client as well. These forms move along with her clients to each folder decreasing the likelihood that a piece of information would be missed.
Image with permission and courtesy of Jennifer Smith
Image with permission and courtesy of Jennifer Smith
Hiring Companies to Help
One of the best things I have recently done was hiring a social media manager. Keeping up with the ever changing algorithms, hashtags, and more was creating more work than I needed on my plate. I simply finish a set of images and drop them into a shared folder with the company. From here I can move onto other pressing items in my workflow. The team over at The Little Marketing Genius handle all forms of social media on my behalf. Katie Ehlers and Jamie Tomassetti interact with my followers for me daily. I love adding quotes to my images and have been doing so for years. At first I thought I would have to hand over a bunch of text as well. Instead the team researched back into previous posts, learned my voice for each image, and post over the sites I have decided work the best for me. Currently they post to Instagram, my Facebook page, and now into my VIP forum group. Each site lends to a different market for me. I still interact with all pages on a personal level. However this consistent posting and interaction when I am away proved to be worth it 10 times over.
“We have found that our social media management has been especially helpful, and yielded great results for business owners in the creative fields of art and photography,” Ehlers said. “Photographers and artists are given the ability to focus on their gift of creativity, rather than trying to keep up with the ever changing world of social media. We allow them to share their gift with the world on a consistent and productive basis yielding more leads and converted sales to clients.”
Automation
If you are doing your own social media work, choose a day to load up your automation process so you can set it and forget it for the rest of the time. Prior to hiring someone to do this for my company, I would sit down on Mondays to set up all automating posting of images, emails, and reminders. Facebook scheduling is simple and allows you to choose the date and times you want your post to be delivered. If you do seven images posted in one sitting you can stay active for a whole week while you are working on client edits instead of uploading in between. Keeping a seamless workflow will be more efficient than taking a break from editing just so you can post an image from last week's session.
Accountability
Having an accountability partner or program works best to keep you organized. Letting things fall off the charts can be easy when work is busy but having someone or a program that reminds you to be consistent in your workflow will be beneficial. Apps such as Focus Me are great to block you from certain sites that suck you in creating hours of wasting time. I use it to block me from social media during certain times of the day because believe it or not watching cat videos is a very inefficient use of my time.
Lead image by Jeff Sheldon via Unsplash.
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Can you elaborate on The Little Marketing Genius pricing, is that an annual fee?
I pay them monthly to take care of my social media posting. There is no annual contract so I can cancel at the end of any month. It takes the worries of all the changing IG and FB does on how hashtags are seen and used as they are up to date on all of that so I can refocus my time on shooting and editing. Hope that helps if not I can go into more!