Andy Bondurant is the founder of The Collective and has been featured in our Animoto Pro ad campaign. Here Andy shares his wisdom about remaining sane during your insanely busy season.
It's coming. You can feel it. The end of the year - the photography holiday rush.
That's the bad news (if you call lots of people clamoring to have your product in their homes for all their family and friends to see - a bad thing). The good news is you have time to prepare for it.
The key to managing any busy time or season in your business is to plan ahead. It sounds simple, but to often it's just not done. Here are three simple things you can do to help ease the rush and crush the Holidays will bring to your business.
1. Family first.
It doesn't matter if your family is 3 kids, a spouse, and a list as long as your arm of relatives or if it's just you, some good friends and the dog, family is most important.
If I were to take a poll, I'm sure that most of you would put family and free time at the top of the list as why you are a professional photographer. You specifically got out of the cubical, so you could call the shots.
So, call the shots. Plan now to be with your family at important ball games or holiday music concerts. When you look back at your life in 20 years, you don't want your highlight to be the client you stayed at the studio to prep instead attending the best holiday party of the decade with your best friends.
2. Work your calendar backwards.
Each of your vendors has a drop dead point. The time and date you absolutely must get your files to them to have the finished product back before Christmas.
Take that date and work backwards. When must you have the images prepped to send? When must the image(s) be ordered by the client? When do you need to shoot the last session?
The key is to give yourself more than enough time. Sure you can kill yourself to rush everything, but you want to…
3. Set boundaries (then make exceptions).
The truth is not every client is worth killing yourself for. You know the client that calls to book a session the week of Christmas demanding to have the finished order Christmas… then only order two 8x10's. You know who they are because they do the same thing every year.
On the other hand you know the client who is going to place a great order, but you just have to make it work for them to get in and get their finished products in time. These are the people you make an exception for. You are willing to work a little harder for them.
At Antisdel's Photography (where my wife, Kia Bondurant, is co-owner), Mondays are dark. The studio is only open to employees to get production type work done. However, every once in while, Kia will make an exception for a client she know and trusts. These exceptions pay off. The last time she did a Monday session, the order was 3x's more than the average sale.
Setting boundaries will save you from headaches and heartaches from clients who aren't worth it, but allow you to make exceptions for those who are.
Crunch time is coming. People will want to get into your doors, and you want them in your studio. Plan now to make it happen by putting family first, working your calendar backwards and setting boundaries, so you can make exceptions.
