210: The 3 Systems Mistakes Photographers Make

systems. And it's not going to make all that much sense if we are understanding systems differently, right if we have different definitions of what systems are and what I mean when I'm talking about systems. So if you've already heard that episode, or once you have a chance to go back and check it out, come on back to this episode, because this is where

the good stuff is. This week, I want to pivot the conversation and talk about the mistakes that a lot of photographers make with their approach to systems and how you can avoid those mistakes. Welcome to this can't be that hard. My name is Annemie Tonken. And I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more

sustainable way. Running a photography, business doesn't have to be that hard, you can do it. And I can show you how. So the first mistake that a lot of photographers tend to make, and I credit this to the fact that many, many of us are very right brained, and we are creatives and we just kind of operate our systems in kind of a shoot from the hip kind of a fashion, right, is that we don't map those systems out, we just kind of know in our heads what it is that we do what it is that we

offer. And we kind of go with that. And if you have moved beyond that, in your business, if you have a CRM setup where you have workflows set up, you know the power of organizing your systems and making them easily repeatable, right, you automate the steps that you don't need to hold in your head.

And even though every small piece of a system may feel like oh, that's no big deal, I don't need to go to the trouble of setting up an automation for that and map that out, I don't need to, you know, spell it out once you do. And once you see that, all those little pieces add up to a lot of RAM running in the back of your head. It really can free you up pretty dramatically once you get that systematized. So the first step is really mapping those systems

out. Because then you can start to organize them and figure out how it is that you can optimize them or automate them or outsource parts of that system, right? The nice thing is that for those of us who are visual people, and I'm going to assume that pretty much everybody listening to this podcast is probably a visual person, right? That visual map can give you so much clarity, it can help you explain your business better when you're talking to potential

clients. And that ability to explain your process really builds a lot of trust, it helps with your messaging, it also helps you see where your weak spots are. So it'll give you clarity on you know what the next steps in your business need to be or how you can improve either your clients experience or your experience or both. I mean, you know, there are, it's hard to fix what you can't see. And this exercise of mapping out your systems really allows you to see from a clearer vantage

point. So mapping out your systems is really vital. The second mistake that a lot of photographers make also kind of comes down to this right brained, you know, I don't want to deal with math and spreadsheets and all that sort

of thing. And that is that many of us will make tweaks and changes to our systems over time, right, instead of promising people that we're going to return their photos in two weeks, we start to notice that like three weeks gives us a little bit more wiggle room and clients are more excited because they've had a little chance to like you know, have some breathing room after the session

or whatever. So anyway, you go from delivering it two weeks to delivering it three weeks, but then you never follow up to see whether that's actually helping your business. You don't track the data on you know how that impacts your on time delivery rate or your clients satisfaction rate. So that was just a random example that I just kind of pulled out of my back pocket. But there are all kinds of data points that you can measure in your business.

And I know some people who measure every little thing, which is amazing, but it's probably overkill and I don't want to overwhelm you here. I would rather you sit down and think about like what are the real impact drivers in my business? What are the things

that are important? What has like what do I think has a big effect act on whatever the case may be your income, your client satisfaction, your speed of your workflow, any of those kinds of things and put systems in place to track the data around whether or not your gut instinct is right. Because sometimes our gut instinct is right, but many

times, it's not. And that can be really, really important when it comes to tracking something like where people are finding you, or the percentage of people who inquire with you who actually go

on to book. So almost everyone should be measuring those two things and grades and conversion rates or booking rates, you should also be keeping a close eye on sales averages, you should know at any given time what your current average sale is, because that allows you to make choices about you know, whether you take a client that isn't really an ideal client for you, you know, if you're hitting your averages and your setup to be profitable, they know that person who contacts you about,

you know, photographing their kids football game, and that's not what you do. But if you are able to clearly and quickly establish like, Nope, I'm not making enough money, then maybe you do want to take that. I also think that customer satisfaction is one of those things that everybody should be tracking.

Because that if you start to see that needle moving in a negative direction, it's really important that you pretty quickly establish what it is that's causing that problem and fix it because that can have a long term effect when it comes to getting referrals and other kinds of repeat business, those things that really contribute to the overall health of your

business. Then the other thing that I would say anybody should measure anybody should keep track of the data on is whatever it is that you're currently trying. So if you're using email as your primary form of marketing, you should measure the size of your list and the

opening click rates. And you should keep track of you know how your list is growing over time, as anything that you are actively trying to improve or that you know, is a major linchpin in your business, like how your marketing strategies are working. If they're not working, then it's time to try

something else. But you can only really tell whether something's working over time, if you're trying because what a lot of us tend to do is if things go quiet for a week or a month, then we throw the baby out with the bathwater, and we say nothing is working, what I'm doing right now isn't working, I have to change everything. And that can be a really dangerous thing to do. I mean, every once in a while your business needs an

overhaul like top to bottom. But in time, it's those small changes that can make the big differences. And when we make those big overhauls, you know, it's hard to tell what is and isn't working, because there's too many variables in that

equation. The other thing that I would love to see anybody measuring, if they are doing this is if you sell products, you want to track what items are most popular, because that is bound to change over time, you know, you maybe did really well with Canvas for a bunch of

years. And now that's kind of gone out of fashion and seeing that, you know, over the course of six months or a year that you've lost 25 or 50% of your revenue on that product is a really good indicator that it's time to move on and try something new. So these are just some suggestions, who you know, how your business operates, who you are, what kinds of things are important to you and your clients, you're gonna have to really determine what it is that

you want to keep track of. But even if you're only tracking those handful of things, where people find you, your sales averages, customer satisfaction, how your primary form of marketing is doing, and, and your product sales and how those are doing. If you keep track of those things, you're going to be better off than 90% of your

competition. And as far as how to keep track, this is the thing that I actually think really slows a lot of people down where they get nervous, like, oh, that sounds like data tracking too big, you know, sounds really tech does not have to be technical I, up until basically this year, I have always just used a Google doc like a Google spreadsheet. And I just set my calendar reminder. And every week on Monday, I go in and I pull the numbers for each of those different data points. And

it takes me like 10 minutes. And I don't even really usually look at those things in the moment. I just like fill in the boxes for that week. And then over time, what that allows me to do is you know, go back and see what's working, what's not working, how things are going. It also allows you to make future plans based on data about when your business is going to be busier and slower. When I'm thinking about buying a like making a large investment in some sort of

education. I always go back to the data to make sure that the problem that I am intending to fix with this course or this program or this conference or Whatever is is actually a problem, or is the source of the problem. And I, it's really saved me a bunch of times because that's where like your emotional drivers can get in the way of, of you making smart business decisions. So these are all really good reasons to keep track of some basic data points

in your business. And then the final mistake is the one that I think is the biggest overall problem. So we have been talking about these three systems. And again, if you missed last week's episode, you have to go back and

listen to that first. But I talked about three systems, your marketing system, which is how you bring people into your business, your sales system, which is how you convert them from somebody who has found your business to someone who has invested in your business, and then your fulfillment system is the way that you make good on whatever offer you have made to them, right. So that's the order in which those systems function in our business, bring them in, sell to them, and then fulfill

on the order. And that, because that's the order, in sort of chronological order, that's how most people prioritize those systems, right? They think about them as first I'm gonna work on marketing, then I'm gonna work on sales, and then I'm going to work on fulfillment. But that is the mistake. Because in a small personal cars, we actually need to prioritize those systems in the reverse order. First, we need to really dial in what it is delivered to people and how

it is that we deliver. So we're going to go back to that systems map and look at our fulfillment system. And make sure that absolutely every piece of that that optimize and that we can make a great experience for our clients. We're going to get all that dialed in first, then we're going to worry about how well we are converting inquiries into purchasers, right, so our sales system comes next. And then finally, we're going to worry about opening the doors wide and getting as many eyeballs on our

business as possible. So many photographers, especially new photographers get hyper focused on filling their calendars, they equate busyness with success, only to realize once they start getting inquiries, that their systems for booking and then working with those clients are a total hot mess. If you have ever been to a restaurant that's new, and had terrible service, or you get there and they're like, We don't have 80% of the items on the menu, because the chef hasn't figured out how to get

their ordering done. Right. You know, they don't know how many people to expect. And so they're just like the kitchens not functioning. Well, the server's haven't been trained properly, and you go to that restaurant once like never again, that is exactly what I'm talking about. I want you to put yourself in a position where you have one raving customer, and you understand that that is better than having five customers who

are like, No, it was okay. And it's way better than having, you know, 10 or 15 or 20, angry customers or disappointed customers, I feel like we all know, you know, all you have to do is go on Amazon and read reviews to know that most of the time, the loudest people are the ones who have had a bad experience. So if you're not ready to fulfill well, then then you really shouldn't be trying to bring as many people as possible in you should be dialing that in, and then

dialing the rest of it in. So you know on the flip side, on the positive side, if you do take the time to set your systems up in that reverse order. Those raving customers, even if they're just a few will help you dial in your messaging, they'll give you testimonials, they'll give you referrals. And perhaps most importantly, they will give you the confidence to market and sell to other people. And that confidence is a piece that you can't systematize like that's just something that you

have to kind of step into. So building out a great customer experience, starting with fulfillment and then moving on to sales. And then moving on to marketing. That's the correct order of operations, definitely when you're new, but even when you're established, because you always want to be sure that your delivery and sales systems are working smoothly before you add more people into the pipeline. So I know I have given you kind of a big dump of information here. Today, I'm going to

quickly summarize it. The three big mistakes that people make when it comes to their systems is that they don't map them out. So they don't really have a clearer picture of how all of their systems work and how they work together. They don't track data on the most important leverage points in their business. So the things that they do, and that happen over time in their business that make an impact. We need to track those things and know what the

actual numbers are. And mistake number three is that people approach their systems in the reverse order from what they should approach them in. So they approach them in chronological order, when in fact we should approach them in reverse chronological order, all of that depends on your business, right? So your system map is going to look different from the competition down the streets system map. And that's a good

thing. Because it should be one of the differentiators in your business, the way you run your business should be the best way that you know how to serve your clients while simultaneously serving yourself. And that's going to look different for different people. I do understand that a systems map may be something that's new to you, though. So I wanted to point you to my own systems map, which lives inside of this can't be that hard University, if you're not familiar with this

can't be that hard. That is a new thing that we have created that I'm really excited about. It is essentially a hub where I have organized all of the free resources that I have created over the history of this business in this podcast. And instead of having to go hunt down individual worksheets and checklists and all that sort of stuff in you know, 90,000 different places, they are all in one spot organized according to kind of how they will help

your business. So in order to access this can't be that hard University, all you have to do is go to this can't be that hard.com/free. And you can sign up, you'll first take an assessment that sort of, you know, asks you a handful of questions about your business. And then I'll send you not only access to this can't be that hard university, but also a syllabus of sorts like a recommended syllabus. There's a lot of stuff inside that hub. And I want to give you some direction in terms of what may

be most useful to you. But inside the systematize section of this can't be that hard university, you will see my systems map and although yours is likely to look different from mine, that will at least give you some inspiration in terms of what a systems map can and should look like when it comes to your photography business. So I wanted to just make sure that you had access to that as well.

And hopefully that'll be a really inspirational jumping off points so that you can dive into these upgrades to your the systems in your business. I hope this has been helpful and I will look forward to seeing you guys same place next week. Well, that's it for this week's episode of This can't be that hard. I'll be back Same time,

same place next week. In the meantime, you can find more information about this episode along with all the relevant links, notes and downloads at this can't be that hard.com/learn If you like the podcast, be sure to hit the subscribe button. Even better, share the love by leaving a review on iTunes. And as always, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week.