Hi everybody. Welcome to episode nine today we're going to be talking about 50 things you can do in your business right now to help move the ball forward. Stay tuned.

Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. If you're a pet photographer, ready to make more money and start living a life by your design, you've come to the right place. And now your host, pet photographer, travel addicts, chocolate martini connoisseur, Nicole Begley.

Hi everybody. Nicole Begley from hair of the dog. I hope you all are doing well today. When I'm recording, this is Thursday, April 9th will be going live here shortly in just a couple of days on the 14th I feel like every single podcast I've been recording recently. I've been mentioning the date and what day we recorded it because everything going on in our world seems to change moment to moment, day by day with all of this Corona virus, Cobra, 19 stuff going on with basically the whole world on standstill. So when I wanted to do because so many people are feeling a little lost or not sure what to work on. I thought why not brain dump a big old list of ideas of things that you can work on in your business. Some of it's in your business, on your business or for even just some self care. I have a list of 50 things that you can spend some time on if you choose now you don't have to. If you are enjoying this time away and refocusing on family or some other things, that's totally cool. I don't want you to beat yourself up about what you are or aren't doing. This big list is for the people that maybe are feeling a little a little overwhelmed and trying to figure out where it is to focus and what they want to work on. So I thought I would give you some ideas and you can go through the list and see what works well for you. If you'd like to follow along, you can download. This list is a PDF. We even have some links on the PDF. If you just go to hair off the dog academy.com/nine just the number nine, that's it. Hair of the dog, academy.com/nine that is the show notes page and there you can download this PDF to follow along to Chuck it off to cross it off to follow some links to other resources that I'm going to share it during our time together so we should get started. You ready? Let's dive right in. All right, number one, how about grabbing that camera and documenting you, your pets, your life, your house, this crazy time in history and you can share those on your social media. I know for me, I love seeing what everybody else is doing. It's a great way to with friends and acquaintances and businesses that I follow, so if you fill out to it, you could definitely share. You don't even have to share. You can just go ahead and document this crazy time. Document some images. I know I grabbed my camera the other night, took pictures of Zoe in the backyard because I just missed shooting and it was a beautiful evening with gorgeous spring light. All right, so that's number one. Number two, you can start to learn some off camera flash. Maybe you've been wanting to start using a little bit of extra lighting at whether inside or outside. Now's a great time to dust that off and just starting to practice because truly the easiest way that I found to learn off camera lighting was just to start practicing. It was kind of like that learning how to manage your camera and starting to shoot in manual where all of a sudden you're like, Oh, well that's easy. I totally get how these three things are related. Now I'm off camera flash and off camera lighting is really the same thing. You just practice a little bit and all of a sudden you just clicks and you're like, Oh, why did I make this so hard? So definitely check that out. If that's something that you want to work on. Number three. You can take that off camera lady and start practice some studio shooting. You don't have to have a big fancy studio. You can set this up in your garage, in your living room. You don't need a ton of rooms, so that's definitely something that you can practice as well. Number five or note for getting ahead of myself. Number four, maybe you want to try some new shooting techniques. Maybe you want to test out some new lenses or you want to test out some action can have somebody in your family run. If you don't have a dog, have your husband, boyfriend, spouse run around in the back yard and try to get nail those action shots. That way you don't have to use these images for something, anything at all. You can just use them to practice some different techniques, so definitely go ahead and try some new techniques that you're looking to to want to practice on. All right now number five you can learn a new editing technique. There are Google's, Google's gaggles a lot. There are a lot of editing tutorials out there that are free. We have quite a few on the hair of the dog YouTube channel. There'll be a link in the PDF if you want to go check those out. Tons and tons of editing tutorials out there. So why not grab an old image that you shot and try to edit it in a new way. All right, number six, maybe you can scout locations during your exercise time. Now this one is definitely a moving target as some places start to close all of our parks as well and you need to exercise closer to home. But if being out in different parks is still available to you and you can still maintain proper social distancing, maybe that is a great time to check out some other areas that you might want to use for locations in the future. Number seven, fully set up the legal side of your business. Those are things like Oh, contracts and setting up to collect sales tax and business formation if you need it in your state, your local County, all those things like that. Um, you know, just to make sure that that is all ready to go. So that's definitely a good thing that you can be doing right now. I actually just created a new freebie for you guys. It's actually one of the classes from the hair of the dog Academy, but I have made it available as a free opt in so that you can jump on in there and watch that lesson and watch that class and have a checklist of everything you need to fully set up the legal side of your business so you can always get that. Also in the show notes, remember hair of the dog academy.com/nine will take you to the show notes for this episode and you can download that PDF and it'll have all the links to all of these different things in there. All right, number eight double check those bank accounts. Do you have a separate personal and business bank account? What about your credit cards? You should always keep your business and your personal expenses separate, so maybe check out what you have going on and make sure that you are keeping everything separate. Number nine, how about revamping or creating your session agreement? It's always good to look at over the, even if you've been in business for 10 years, when's the last time you looked at that? It would probably be a good idea to pull it out and make sure your terms and conditions are still accurate and make sure just your session agreement is accurate. Number 10, create a branding guideline for your business. I can't tell you how many times having that available becomes really, really useful for me and my business when I'm sending something out or you know, somebody just needs to know what my fonts are, what colors that I use, what my, where my logo is. Just having all of those things in one little package. Even if it's just in a Dropbox folder where you have your logos and you have any illustrations that are part of your brand and you have just a document that says, Hey, these are my colors, these are my fonts. Just so that you keep your graphic design in the proper graphic design box so that your business and everything forward facing to your clients looks like it belongs to the same business. So it's always a great, great, best practice is to keep branding guidelines for your business. All right, number 11 how about reviewing and updating your pricing? When's the last time that's happened? I also have a free pricing masterclass you guys are welcome to grab. Again, the link will be in the PDF download on the show notes page and that again is Harold the dog academy.com/[inaudible] number nine just the number nine not writing it out. All right, number 12 order new samples if needed. If you maybe just sit down and look at what samples you have for your business. Maybe you've been meaning to get that new album together. Why don't you go ahead and design it? Even if your lab is not currently open right now, you can at least get a design so as soon as they open you can get that ordered. There are still quite a few labs that are open, so just double check with your lab before you order to make sure that they are fulfilling orders right now. Number 13 you can organize your office. I know my office tends to get a giant of paperwork right next to me that sometimes I feel might smother me if it were to land on me. And I don't know about you but I feel less than inspired when my office clutter starts to get a little out of control, which is usually truly just 8,000 notepads cause I write notes on like the top of one, but I don't want to rip that page off cause I don't lose that page. Then I just grab another notepad and all of a sudden I have like 37 notepads next to me. So it always feels good when I sit down and go through those and organize my office. Number 14. What about organizing your digital files? As I'm looking at my computer right now on my desktop, there are oodles of files that um, I really need to sit down and go through some of those, you know, I'm creating screenshots for different things or processes and whatnot and it just gets a little out of control really quickly. So I'm sure you have a place with some digital clutter. Definitely we can clean that up. All right, number 15 what about that gear closet? You know you have it, you know you have that closet with a whole bunch of stuff just sitting in there. Why don't you clean that out? No time like the present number 16 this one can make you some money about selling. That said old gear that you just found an option 15 when you cleaned out that gear closet. If you're wondering where to sell your old gear, you can sell yourself on eBay or lots of camera stores. Have a used gear program that they'll actually purchase your used gear. Of course you won't get quite as much money going to them cause they need to sell it and make a profit. You know when they buy your gear. But it's super easy. So time or money, you can sell it yourself and make a little bit more money, but it's going to cost you some time or you can go ahead and just sell it straight to a reseller and then you get some money quickly without really any effort on your part. All right. Number 17 how about updating those website images? How many of us need to do that? How many of us have said we're going to do that for the past year and a half? Yeah, I'm sure I'm not the only one. Okay. What about 18 updating your website copy? Let's look at what we're saying on our website. Are you talking about common objections that your potential client might have on your website? Are you speaking to that because so many people would love to get a pet photography session, but I hear it all of the time. My dog will never sit still for that. Well, we need to let them know that that's okay. Most dogs don't. They don't need to sit still. I think the two biggest objections that people have that keep them from moving forward and learning more about pet photography is that they think their dog won't behave and they can't have their dog off leash, so they think, Oh, well I'm going to have Alicia in all of my images. They don't realize so many of our images were taken with the dog on the leash. All right. Number 19 what about working on your search engine optimization or your S E? O there's so much information out there. If you just want to Google SEO for whatever platform you're on, there are plugins for WordPress, like Yoast SEO, which is a great free plugin that will help you set up certain pages for search engine optimization on your website so that more potential clients can find you once the world starts to return to normal. What about number 20 this is my favorite. Starting an email list. Critical. If you've been around me for any length of time, you will know that I often say do not pass. Go. Do not collect$200 until you have your email list set up. This is not an email list in Gmail. This is an actual email software, email marketing account. There's places like MailChimp. My personal favorite is flow desk. It is um, a email service that produces beautiful images and it's really straightforward and easy to make a form to put on your website for people to opt in. You can put that opt in, which this is 21 so this is 20 and 21 create an opt in for your website so you can create and like little email course for people. Maybe it's preparing for your pet photography session. Maybe it is how to take better pictures of your dog with your phone, whatever you think your potential client is interested in the best breweries in your area, the best hikes in your area. Think about your target market. What do they love to do? What are they interested in? What kind of opt in would be exciting for them that they would be interested in? Kind of create that. It can just be emails that you put together in flow desk. You make a form, you put that form on your website, it says whatever you're offering. They put their email in and then it has a workflow and flow desk, which is really just a series of emails that go out to the client once they sign up. Once that tag is created. Super easy, super straightforward. It is the most user friendly email service that I have really ever seen. So definitely check that out. I do have a link on the PDF for you to save 50% off of your first month and all future months, all months forever. Uh, so it's only$19 a month for at the time of recording this on limited subscribers, which is huge. It's awesome. It's a great company. I really enjoyed them. If you go to a hair of the dog academy.com/flow desk, it's F L O D E S K, and that will also take you to the like, but again, it's also in the free PDF that you can download on the show notes page. All right, John, let's keep moving. Number 22 how about writing blog articles, touching on common objections and preparing clients? We already talked about those two common objections. My dog won't behave, my dog has to be on a leash. What about things that clients need to potentially know before they book their session? Maybe it's my, the most popular products that most clients do or you're showcasing and wall art. You're showcasing stories and an album, maybe you're showcasing some of the favorite places that you like to photograph. You can also talk about how to prepare for your pet photography session. So things to do beforehand, what to wear, how to choose a pet photographer. I mean, there's so many different things that you can start to write these blog articles on. And here's a bonus. Once you write this content, it doesn't just have to live on your blog. You can take bits and pieces and repurpose that content on your Instagram or your Facebook, your social media. You can take those blog articles and add them into that opt in slow desk welcome email sequence that you can create, which is number 23 is to create email, welcome secrets sequence. So yeah, so you can take all of these things and start to repurpose them, which is really, really just an incredible use of time and helps get you the most bang for your buck for the time that you're spending on these things. So with that email welcome series, that becomes something that when somebody sends an inquiry, you have a little welcome series that goes to them whenever they get on your email list. This is a really good thing actually to create. If you're doing an event or somewhere where you're collecting a lot of email addresses and then you put them into your system and then you send out this welcome email series. It can be one email to start with. Don't overthink it, don't make it too hard. You don't have to create a 10 email series one email up to three is all you need. And just introduce yourself, talk about who you serve and how you serve them and the value that you bring. Address those common objections. And then the last one, you can make an offer. Uh, you can just make an offer to get in touch if they'd like to talk more about a potential session or schedule a no obligation consultation. You can make an actual offer to book a session. All of those things can happen inside this little email series. All right, 24 time to update some product images. Oh my goodness. You know guys, we can photograph these dogs that are like running around. Everyone thinks they're so hard to photograph. But then you give me a piece of wall art and you're like, I'm sorry I'm supposed to photograph this. Somehow it can be kind of overwhelming for us to have to photograph these products cause we again over think it. It can be as simple as actually it can be as simple. Even if you don't have the product, you can create a product mock up by you know, taking artwork onto a wall and a Photoshop file. There are a ton of different product mockups available out there on the internet that you can download. Pull into Photoshop, put your images on it. If you just Google that, you'll find lots of different things. Cause also take your products and photograph them in different areas of your house. If your house is not, you know, a model home or something that you want to showcase the whole house, you can take it. If you have pretty floors, you can put it out in the grass. You can put it out really anywhere. And just to make sure that it is, you know, some nice kind of flat open shade lighting so that you can really just see the product. So don't overthink it. It's really just something you need to just get out there and do. And good product photos are better than no product photos, so don't wait to like perfect it and make them the most beautiful product photos you've ever seen. They're okay if they're just good enough. Just go ahead and get that done. All right, 25, we're halfway through. Let's start creating some marketing templates. What about your inquiry guide? What about your welcome guide? What about pricing guides? Our product guides, so many things. Digital file guides, we can create all of these different templates. Spoiler alert. Um, we're actually gonna be creating a hair of the dog store with a lot of these templates soon. I can't give you a definite date, but by the end of April, I do hope to have that store up and running and I'll keep you posted. So if you need to create those welcome guides, those inquiry guides, they will be Photoshop files that you're ready to customize with your branding and your look. They'll actually be copy already in there that you can take and customize for your business, but you'll at least know where to start, so I'm really excited to start offering those to you guys. I'll keep you posted. All right, number 26 how about learning how to start doing in person sales? Also called IPS. If you've heard that there's a free three-part blog series on the hair of the dog. If you want to check that out. Again, the link is going to be in that special PDF or on the show notes. Page number 27 how about planning your goals for the rest of the year personally and professionally? Maybe we start, it still did in January. Maybe we need to reevaluate a little bit. Maybe we just never got around to actually planning goals. What are your goals for the rest of the year? It's definitely a good time to sit down and reflect on that and see what you want to do with the rest of the year. All right, number 28 how about starting to sell stock images? Now, if you're going to do that, make sure that you do have the proper releases. Remember, we need model releases for any image that has the human and property releases for any image that has a dog. I have all of that stuff in my regular client session agreements, so just make sure that you have the proper releases before you sell anything to stock images. All right, number 29 let's brain dump marketing strategies like all of them. Anything you can think of, there is no bad strategy in a brain dump session. Literally everything you can think about. I love to do this on Trello to kind of keep a big giant master running board of ideas on Trello and then 30 number 30 we can schedule our marketing plans for a full year. What if we thought ahead and said, all right, what do we want to do first, quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter, and having, even if we had multiple opportunities or multiple different strategies for each of those quarters, what do you want to focus on where and then you have this master list and as you set up each year you have this list to pull from and marketing becomes easier and easier. I think this is where a lot of people get stuck with marketing their business is they just get overwhelmed and they keep working on the easy things. Why not take this time now to do the harder things, which is scheduled that marketing plan for the full year. Schedule the marketing plan for the rest of the year. Work out the exact details of what that marketing plan looks like. You don't have to implement it right now. You don't have to market right now if you're not feeling ready for that, but you can have it ready to go. So when the opportunity is ready, you can hit the ground running and just start taking action. All right, number 31 how about reaching out to rescues or charities? There are so many things we can do. I'm going to be doing a nother podcast in a couple of weeks on charitable marketing, so come back for that and I'm going to share some different ways that you can work with rescues and charities that raise money for them and builds appreciation for your brand and also bring some great clients into your business. All right. How about 32 can we partner with other businesses? Again, we just want to ask how we can help. Lots of businesses right now are being affected by this crazy pandemic, so now's a great time to reach out to them and just offer, you know, if you can help them in any way, if they need any photography, once things start to get back to normal, if there's a way that you can partner with them to do something fun and exciting for their customers. There's just so many different ways, but the only way you can do that is if you actually reach out and talk to other humans. So I promise is not too scary. Just reach out, come from a place of service and it will all work out wonderfully for you. All right, number 33 what about creating a special healthcare appreciation offer for first responders healthcare workers? After the settles, we can definitely offer them something special. A special mini-session day, a special session offer. Why don't you work through some of that as some of your marketing brain dumped. Number 34 plan, some limited edition sessions. Also known as many sessions. I really don't like the term mini sessions because I don't want them to be many. I also have a great blog post on here. The dog, uh, about mini sessions do not have to equal many profits. That again, will be linked in the PDF that you can download on the show notes page here of the dog academy.com/nine all right, number 35 what about offering paintings or other artwork on images that you've already shot or on images provided by the clients? That's a great way to build some revenue now and do some work without having to actually go out and shoot. All right, number 36 what about offering old digital files or products on sale to previous clients? I like to do this usually first quarter. Every once in a while. If you haven't done it in a while, now is a great opportunity to do so to offer digital files to people that hadn't purchased digital files but maybe purchased other things or maybe they purchased a little bit like or they purchased, you know, even if they had a great order, you can get in touch with them and see if they want to order any additional wall art. If I'm offering my Walmart on sale number one, I never post this publicly. I only reach out directly to previous clients because I don't want other clients, potential clients to be like, Oh look, she has sales. No, no, no one needs to know that my photography business ever would have a sale and when I do have these kind of products on sale, things like this, you can always blame it on your lab. Hey my labs offering a sale on this product. I would love to pass the savings on to you. Would you like to add that on from your session from last year or the past couple of years or whatever. All right, number 37 what about creating an E magazine with partners, with like pet business partners, you can have a vet and a groomer and a trainer and a dog bakery and a pet food store. All of these different things, they can start to write a little article. You can provide the photography in it, you can put it together and then that's something that they can have on their websites to digitally download for the people that come to their websites. You of course have an article in there about photographing pets or something that highlights your business and that's just a great way to make associations, make relationships with these different businesses and you all benefit by creating something of value for all of your clients. Alright. How about 38 how about booking now and getting a bonus? This can look like anything. I don't like to do sales on my photography session. So if it's usually$200 I don't like to say, Hey, my sessions on sale, because I feel like that discounting just kind of leaves a, it lowers the value, the perceived value of your brand, but you can always add value, which is really a still doing the same thing. It's still a sale, but it has a completely different perceived value. So instead of having just a discount on cost, what if it's the same cost but you add value, you have with every session booked, you get double the credit with every session booked, you get this special gift, whatever it is. So that's something that you can definitely plan on doing. 39 matching dollar spend for like buy one get one gift certificates or purchase a gift certificate and get, you know, maybe even you can limit it to purchase a$500 gift certificate and receive$500 of free credit. You know, of course you need to make sure your pricing is in line. It can support these things, but that's a great way to get people to book now and then money spent is money forgotten and I'm sure they will continue to purchase even more once you actually hold their session. Number 40 what about gifting slideshows or a custom app to previous sessions? So previous clients, if you never created a little like custom app, like a sticky album or many different online galleries, I'd like to use cloud spot. Cloud spot lets you create a custom app in there. You can just gift that to your clients and say, Hey, then thinking about you, hope you're doing well. I just wanted to send this little gift to you as a thank you because you're just building these relationships and that is what these businesses are built on. Everyone always says what's a good referral program? I don't think any referral program is what motivates people to refer you well, it motivates people to refer you is that they had a great experience with your business and they like you as a person. So that's all. That's the secret. That's really the secret to referrals. Okay. Number 41 create a VIP offer for past clients. They can either use it or they can gift it to a friend or they can use it and they can gift one to a friend. I love this because your past clients, of course you're only going to do this with your great past clients. Your past clients know how you work. They know what price point they spent. They, they know what to expect. So if you're going to gift them with, Hey, here's a gift certificate for a complimentary session with a product credit or however you want to work at that they can give to a friend, they're only going to give to friends that they think can afford the experience. They're not going to gift it to their friend that's maybe having trouble paying their rent. They're kind of gifted to a friend that they know has disposable income because they've already experienced the experience so they know what to expect. So I, that's one of my favorite marketing strategies. All right, number 42 how about simply reaching out to our past clients and checking on them? Again, building those relationships that are the backbone of our business. Number 43 connect with your audience on Instagram. Simply share puppies. You guys were pet photographers. We're not accountants. We can share adorable pictures of dogs. I mean, I know I've been spending way too much time on Facebook and Instagram. Just scrolling through and you know, I like to see the happy cute images, not necessarily all of the news articles and things like that. So let's share joy and share puppy number 44 offer payment plans in your business. I do this no matter what the situation in the world is, I love offering payment plans. People can pay up to six months and they just get all of their products at the end. There's no extra fee for that. Really, really pretty easy. People can, you know, you can start payment plans now that if they want to have a session in October, you can start putting, you know, pay on plan to that now offering that if they would like. All right, number 45 how about updating any workflows or studio management software? How is your process for your client? From beginning to end. Really look at that. Look at that from the perspective of your client. Look at that from your perspective and see where you can save time and see if there's any additional touch points you can add to make a better experience for your client. Number 46 brainstorm how you can get more leads into your business. Guys, this is the secret. This is what we need to do in our businesses. If you want to grow your photography business, quite simply, you need to get more leads into your business. So let's brainstorm how we can do that. Different contests, opt ins on our website, going to events and having raffles there. There are so many different ways that you can start to create more leads into your business. Facebook ads, things like that. Just brainstorm. Again, this could be your brain dump. There can be no wrong answers in a brainstorming session. Um, but if you put them all in one place, then you can start to see what jumps out at you as you know, things that you might want to work on now in your business. All right, number 47 we're getting down towards the end guys, thanks for hanging in there with me. Number 47 learn how many old courses have you purchased that you haven't gone through yet? So many different things that we can be learning now is a great time to sit down and start to refocus on that education that we wanted to do. Don't forget we have hair of the dog Academy as well. Um, hair of the dog, academy.com/academy and that has, Oh my gosh, everything a pet photographer could possibly want, possibly need. And again, there will be a link in this PDF [email protected] slash[inaudible] all right, number 48 ask past clients for Google reviews or leave them for other businesses. Now, quick caveat here. I believe Google reviews is down and closed currently. Might be back open now, but definitely double check before you start asking people to leave reviews for this. You might have to wait a little bit for that. All right, number 49 self care and grace, definitely take the time to take care of yourself. Whether that's reading a book, just sitting in the sun, baking, whatever, going for a walk, going for a run, the running and stuff. Really not how I self care, but going for a walk with my headphones, listening to good podcasts. That's definitely something I enjoy doing. I also enjoy every once in a while just sitting down and vegging out in front of the TV. I've been loving that. It is nice out so I've been sitting on the back porch. I've actually been trying to even work on the back porch a little bit because it is spring here and it's beautiful and sunny and I am so grateful that we are not stuck inside in January. All right, and number 50 last but certainly not least, connect with community. One great community is the hair of the dog Facebook community. We have, gosh, I think it's almost 13,000 pet photographers in that group now, so you can definitely check that out. If you go to Herald, the dog academy.com/fb group, it'll take you there. Again, a link will be in that PDF download of all 50 ideas that we just went over, so definitely go check that out. Again, the show notes pages, hair of the dog academy.com/nine and you can download that PDF there. I look forward to having you guys join us in the hair of the dog Facebook community and I would love if you would share what you're working on or what, which ideas of these 50 ideas that you're going to choose to implement over the next couple of weeks. So definitely jump over to the Facebook group and share with us and I'll see you next week here on the hair of the dog podcast. Take care everybody. Thanks for listening to this episode of hair of the dog podcast. If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute

to leave a review and while you're there don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss our upcoming episodes. One last thing, if you are ready to dive into more resources, head over to our [email protected]. Thanks for being a part of this pet photography community.