I know I say it every week, whether it's a conversation with a guest or whether I'm just waxing poetic on some topic, but I am so excited to share today's conversation with you this one in particular, I feel like has the power, potentially to completely revolutionize your
photography business. Noah Andres is the partnership manager at imagine and I am the very flattered, humbled, excited, proud, newest, brand ambassador for imagine imagine is a, an AI, calling an editing program for photographers, it works seamlessly with your Lightroom catalog to essentially learn your editing style, and then reproduce that for you in very little more than the click
of a button. You know, regardless of you know, maybe today's shoot is outside in the bright sunshine and yesterday's shoot was indoors in with artificial light. Over time, it will learn how you handle both of those scenarios. And it will be able to crank it out whether it is Christmas morning, whether you have the flu, whether you know you are in the midst of busy season, and you just need a
helping hand. This is not some one who relies on you for a paycheck, it is an entity that can handle the stuff that you don't want to do or have the time to do. And so it is the perfect kind of tool, as far as I'm concerned to recommend any photographer add to their arsenal, Noel and I are going to be talking about all kinds of stuff, you may have already noticed that this show is longer
than most of mine. And that's because this is a woman who has so much amazing knowledge she has been in every side of the photography business. She has been a photographer, she's been a coach, she ran a marketing
agency for photographers. And now as I said, she is working with imagine so on one of the tech tools for photographers, and over the course of that time, she has had the opportunity to interface with so many photographers and see it behind the scenes of so many businesses, what's working, what's not working. And what she has to share about that is so valuable for each and every one of us. So I'm going to shut up and let this conversation take the front stage. 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. No, Ella, it is so wonderful to welcome you on to this can't be that hard. How are you today?
I'm doing so good. The weather is beautiful where I live, which is a change. So I'm happy.
Well, good. It is. It's getting real warm here. And we are recording this the morning before my son graduates from high school, which is like mind blown. So things are fun. Yeah, thank you. We're excited. I'm excited. It's emotional. It's you know, all the things. So today, this conversation is the last thing that we're doing before I close my computer and go back and get ready for our big weekend of graduation
celebration stuff. And I would not have made this face on my calendar for just about anybody but you. Thank you, we have had a lot of fun together in the brief period of time that we've gotten to hang out in real life. No, Ella and I finally crossed paths at reset conference this year, and got to do some hanging out. And it just made me so excited for this connection and this partnership. And it really is one of the things and I'll let you kind of jump in on this.
But it's one of the things that I love the most about having any kind of platform, there's set. Well, I like a lot of things about this phase of my career where I'm getting to work with all these different photographers. But I'm also getting to know the people behind the brands that I have used for a long time. And it has been in 890 90% of cases. Such
such a wonderful thing. I feel like as photographers we kind of get head down in our photography community, but the community of businesses that support us as photographers is just as robust and you know, is filled with passionate people at the same level. So it's really kind of
oh, that's, that's my favorite part about events is vendor rooming getting to connect with like the people behind honey book and pick time and like yeah, that I as a photographer have used for so many years. But I remember Do you remember the moment I saw you I actually I found Yeah. And that makes I still haven't seen that selfie. But I was like, Oh my gosh, did we
do that on my camera or on yours? Oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to look that up right after we stopped recording and maybe I'll if I can find it. I'll put it with this thing. I had some kind of I don't know what was going on with the photos that I was taking when I was there. I have several selfies that were super blurry. So it may have been, I know, it's like I get nervous. Oh, my goodness. Well, good. Well, I am excited to dive in on what we're
talking about today. You have so much experience in this industry from multiple perspectives. And I love what you bring to the conversation and the conversations that you and I have had about kind of the the differences in each photographers journey and the sort of the common threads with those photographers who are able to make it long term. And I feel like we've got a ton of stuff to
cover today. So before we dive in, why don't you just go ahead and give everybody sort of the the overview of who you are and how you came to be in the position that you're in.
So my name is Noah. And first I'm a mom, which I think is important to support a part of my story and why I kind of do what I do. I have two teenagers I live in the Canadian Prairies I self identify as a farmer slash homesteader which people are always surprised to find out I have 17 chickens. And they all have names. I know what they're all I know every single one of their names. I spend all my summer in the garden all my fall is spent making tomato
sauce. I'm Italian. So that's like the thing that yeah, serial entrepreneur, which I know a lot of people say but I'm like, it's to my core. I actually something you may not know and I don't talk about very often is I owned a gift shop and flower shop. I didn't know very often, but I do I owned a flower shop. I recently sold it last year. So I'm an Enneagram seven, which kind of explains the serial entrepreneurship. Yeah, I was a wedding photographer. So I was a wedding and boudoir
photographer. I closed my business I say I retired from full time shooting in about 2015 2016 ish at a time, you know, still incredibly passionate about the industry. But for and maybe you can, you know understand this, but it I'm sure a lot of other people will resonate with this. As a mom wedding photography was very hard when especially once my
kids went to school. So what was going on was, you know, I was shooting evenings and weekends during the consultations, which back then everything was in person, there was no and my kids were my kids were walking in the doors I was walking out it wasn't sustainable for me at that time, still passionate about the industry, I pivoted and I started helping photographers in the backend of
their business. So I started doing things like blogging and invoicing and social media that turned into a full blown agency. We helped dozens and dozens of photographers. So I got a really unique perspective of behind the scenes. And yeah, photographers were struggling with the most pivoted into coaching, still do coaching and consulting and strategy for photographers. That is something that I think I'll always do. I'm so passionate about that. In November, this feels like I'm rushing through
my entire career. But in November, I joined imagine, which is an AI calling and editing software, I joined as the partnership manager and have been in a blissful love relationship ever since.
That's amazing. kind of wrapped up. Yeah, well, and I say that I've said this before on the show, I say it in conversations all the time with people about how because although our pads have not very much in common in terms of like how we got to where we are, what they do have in common is the fact that it was like I'm over here. Now I'm over here. And now
I'm doing this thing. And I certainly felt as I was sort of moving through my career trajectory over time, that every time that I made a switch that felt huge. And then you know, all my friends and family were like, how's this such and such going? And I was like, actually, I'm doing this totally different thing now. And I always felt this sense of I don't know, I don't want to call it shame. But almost like I had to make excuses for the fact that I was changing direction, whatever.
But when I turn around now and look in hindsight at those various forks in the path, it makes sense. Like I can draw a line and say these are the things that I'm good at that are, you know, overlap with my interests and all this other stuff. And so, you know, I do feel like in retrospect as you sort of walk through that journey, that makes perfect
sense to me. It makes sense with both just sort of in general but then knowing you I feel like it more than anything you have been following a path that has served The things that were important to you and your in your life.
Yes. 100%. And you know, and it's funny because I felt the same thing like, this is incredible. Like, all my friends are like, Oh, you're changing your career again? Oh, like, right. My parents get it together. Yeah, like love them, but conservative Italian. So, you know, and it wasn't it wasn't until I actually I had connected with a photographer based out of Paris who literally she was like, she's in her like late 50s Incredible fashion photographer, and she just was like, No, I'm giving you
permission to pivot. Like, you can pivot, as long as you know, just like, follow what your heart is telling you. And for me, my heart has always been incredibly passionate about photographers, helping women photographers, in particular, not gender style typing, but that's like something that's super passionate for me. And helping photographers have more freedom in their life, which is what I did as a marketing agency, which is what I did as a
coach. And now as a partnership manager with imagine it's just about freedom and giving, especially moms more time with their loved ones, you know? Yeah. So yeah, it's, it's always always been on the same path. It's just kind of looked a little different every time. Yeah.
And the thing is, and I, speaking of my son who's graduating, he and I have had a whole bunch of conversations, as you know, now he's gotten accepted in college, so he's getting ready to move out. And there's all this pressure, you know, on kids at this age to have some answer when someone asks them what they
want to be. And I have said to him over and over again, if someone had told me, this is what you're going to be doing, when you're, you know, now, because who knows what I'm going to be doing 10 years from now. But if, if somebody had told me that I would have assumed that they like, had connected the wrong name, like they had read the spreadsheet wrong, or something like, no, no, that
doesn't, that's not right. And also, they wouldn't have been able to tell me that when I was graduating high school, because half of what I do now, like there was no word for podcasts, like that wasn't a thing. So keeping an open mind and sort of being willing to pivot and adjust and change, I think, especially for those of us who consider ourselves to be drawn to the creative arts. Yes, it's important because that burnout is like a, it's a real thing. If you sit
passionate about you burnout, you do it. Yeah. Okay. But I
digress. Because I really do want to dive into what we were what we're planning on talking about today, which is the fact that this these sort of many views on the photography industry that you have had, over the years have given you some really important, I think, insights into what works and what those common threads are, when it comes to successful long term creative entrepreneurs. I'm gonna I'm gonna change it from photographers to creative entrepreneurs, but it understanding that they're in
there. Yeah.
I mean, I could get go on forever. But yeah, there's a few pieces, from all my experience working with different photographers, you know, especially within the marketing agency, I saw a lot when I ran the marketing, I'm sure. And I think that there's always a few different bottlenecking areas that photographers would come across, they would get stuck on and not just get stuck, but it would prevent them from growing, right?
Yeah, I know that in the in the world, there's that phrase, like, what got you here won't get you there. And when you say the word bottleneck, I think about times in my career, where I have felt really bottlenecked. And oftentimes it is finding that sort of breakthrough thing where it's like, until I figure out how to break through this piece, I'm not going to be able to move
forward. And for me, I feel like looking back on my photography career in particular, the first time that that came into play was when I subscribed to my first CRM and set that up, which really, like opened the door into the wild world of or the wide world of systems. Would
you say that? Yes, that is like number one. Okay, that I was planning on saying, so, you know, and I can say this from because I was often the person that people outsourced tasks to, right, like I was one that was given a to do list. What a difference a system could be, like. So I I'm super passionate about Systemising, everything, like even like everything, even if it's a three
step process. And you mentioned we were talking earlier, and you mentioned air table, and I'm like yes, give me your table. Let's just use the project management tool. So that's like number one, like project management tools to help you systemize or just documenting every single thing that you do in your business, not just documenting it but knowing what it is so that as you're like you're sitting down at your desk and you're like, Hey, I got to
do this. You have you're not it prevents you from spiraling Yeah. which I think a lot of us do when we sit at our desk if there is a lack of systems, right? So And to go along with systems, and I don't want to skip ahead, but like the tools, like you said, like air table CRM, things like that, figuring out the tools that you're going to use to create those systems. But, you know, I've been outsourced so many times where they're like, Hey, can you just help me with social media? And
I'm like, okay, great. Like, where is your links? Were like, where's your drive for richer? And where do I find your images? Where's passwords? You know, just, there's just nothing. There's no systems often. And I think when you work for yourself, you don't think you need systems? You know, you're like, I'll just do it. Like, yeah, I need to document it. Well,
and this system, lives in the soft gray part in between your ears like, exactly, which is fine. For a short time, where you can hold all of that and you don't have enough going on, or you don't have so much going on that you start to drop those pieces. But that part sneaks up really quickly, in my experience.
100% like the second you get any kind of busy, you know, so yeah, that's kind of like first and most important, in my mind is any repetitive tasks that you're doing in your business, document it? Yeah, I recently found out and I feel like I was living under a rock. But there's a program called scribe, which someone just introduced me to I don't know if you've heard about it, but
I've heard about it, but you're gonna have to remind me what it does it
basically so you take your repetitive tasks, and you basically hit like record. And it step by step outlines the things that you're doing with your mouse. So like, if you're checking your email or your like updating your website, it will record the steps and it writes it all out with screenshots.
Oh, wow. Nice. So it's creating those like standard operating procedures for you. Nice love that.
I know. So anyways, I was like, mind blown when I found that program out ever to use it so many. Oh,
that's amazing. Yeah. So just the other day I sat down, I do I have a virtual assistant, this poor woman watches so many videos of mine, I'm sure because I make videos constantly. And they're just screen recording videos, and I'll talk while I'm doing something, and say, Okay, this is the you know, we have this project that I need help with, here's the steps to do the project. And I'll just walk through the whole thing and talk as I go. And then I send that to
her. And you know, she knows what lengths there are to tack it all together. And then she's able to do it. But I do think that in a small business environment like this, you're probably never going to get to the point where you are. Like, here, I have a marketing department and I don't really know what they do, they just do their magic we are, it's almost never going to grow beyond us being sort of the head of all of
the parts of the business. But that doesn't mean that you have to do it over and over again. But you can't sort of offload it until you know what it is that you're doing. Right.
100% Like there were so many times when I had that agency that where someone would hire me, they know exactly what they needed help with. But then the onboarding process, we would get stalled out. And then they would get discouraged and be like, nevermind, maybe I'm not ready to do this. But if they didn't have those systems documented, and they didn't have the bandwidth, you don't always have the bandwidth to like spend two weeks onboarding someone and chat with you and how you like
things done. And that's why like, I just think it's so important to document as much as you can, right from the very beginning. Because, you know, you don't know where your business is going. And, you know, the more that you can get that out of the way. And that's the other thing too, is you can start outsourcing as a business owner, but you're not gonna get the results you want. Unless you tell them how to get there.
Right, you know, just saying, Hey, can you plan my social media for a month, you're not going to end up what you want with what you want? It's gonna add a buffer. All right? You have to Yeah, you have to have all that in place. And along with systems, I'm just gonna like add in a little tidbit. Like use something like LastPass for passwords, because there's nothing worse than getting this the text message. Hey, what's the password for this? What's the best document? Yeah,
I'm on the one password side of things, but not for any reason other than that was the first one I thought of or the that I came across. But it blows my mind when I find those people out there who are not using a password manager. I mean, for all the things that we need passwords for and for how disastrous it can be if you get hacked and all your passwords are the same which you don't have any control over like somebody else gets hacked and then all of a sudden they have
access to all your stuff. So yeah, literally
making my palms sweat even like if you're traveling like it would he wouldn't like you. Okay, full disclosure I did when we were at reset conference. I did have to call my husband and ask him to pull a password off my computer. So I'm maybe like guilty this but yeah, like, I don't get it. Yeah.
Okay, so let's say that you are A newer photographer listening to this and you're hearing, okay, I need systems, I need, you know, to start to document all of these things, but their thought is either or maybe some combination of both. A, I don't even really know what my systems are like, I don't I figure, I'm still figuring out how to manage all these different things. So how do I start to document that? Or when do I start to document that?
Personally, I think the second you do something more than like 10 times in your business, that's when you start, like, you know, because I think there's, there's going to be a stage where you're not sure you're testing things out, you're trying to figure things out. But I think yeah, just like the repetitive but not just like, I'm going to do it once or twice, but like the tech
10 ish times. And thankfully, a lot of the programs we use nowadays are so incredibly user friendly, that it's almost like, well, do I really need to document that like HoneyBook, for example, they into their next buttons are pretty like you can figure it out, you know, you hit in debt, and really need to document it. But I still suggest documenting, and yeah, you've got your systems, that's the place to start.
The next step after that is, once you're struggling to manage the systems all on your own, as long as they're well documented, you can outsource. Yeah. And I feel like probably a lot of the people who are listening to this podcast are in that place, they are not brand new, they're in that sort of middle place where they've started to outsource a couple of things, they've started to learn some of these tools. And they're, you know, they're still doing a lot of the stuff, but
they've got some help. What's next in the, in sort of the journey, you
know, what I think it's important to note the things again, that are bottlenecking you the things that are preventing you from doing the things you should be doing your business. So as a business owner, you know, there's a lot of like, over arching, kind of like vision, vision casting, you know, working on the company that you
should be doing. And often you can't do that, because you're bottlenecked with the small, repetitive, mundane tasks that you're not necessarily 100% needed to do, you know, as the owner. So I think figuring out making a list of the things that you like, meet, maybe they just maybe you wake up in the morning, you're like, oh, I have to plan social media, it's like the things that you're dreading
doing. Make a list of those things, you know, and I've, there's kind of two ways that you can go about outsourcing. One of them is finding people that are really good at one or two things. So you can find a copywriter, you can find a graphic designer, you can invite, you know, add many type VA. So there's that is one route that you can go is identifying the tasks that are bottleneck in you, and then finding people that are specialized in helping
you in those areas. The other thing, the other way you can do it is just find someone and train them on every aspect of your business. You know, and I know you have someone who's incredible, and that's kind of that is kind of what I did a lot in my marketing agency was we would have, we would assign one of my team members to a photographer, and they just like, knew that business in and out. And so that's kind of two ways you can go about outsourcing. i What do you
think? How do you think most people start when they outsource? Do you think that they hire like a general person? Or do they hire kind of dig into like, the more specialty like, I'm always curious what other people think
I'm gonna say past, I think that a lot of photographers very quickly offload their bookkeeping, and you know that stuff, because in their mind, that's a totally different job. Yeah, and so they don't feel ownership over it. But what I see, and actually really what I did was believing for way too long. And I look at my own situation. And I'm like, that was your ego, believing that, like no one was going to do what I did, as well as I did
it. And so I held on to things for longer than I should have. And it really wasn't until, in my business, I was like back against the wall. It's either do or die, like you've got to get help. which lots of people who listen to this podcast know kind of coincided with me getting divorced, which actually, everything in my life turned into this situation where I was back against the wall, and I needed help. And I had been an independent person and still consider myself to be a pretty
independent person. But I learned in that season of my life, the value of allowing other people to, to step in, and the necessity of that at certain times. And when it came to my business, because it was this unplanned kind of back against the wall situation, it was very
messy. So I had a lot of sort of failed starts where I was trying to get help, but I didn't know how to help the person who was trying to help me and you know, so it was there was a lot of anxiety around that and then also this sense have like, See, I was right. They're not this isn't working out. In retrospect, I can see that that was very much. I mean, maybe some of those situations wouldn't have worked out anyway. But like, in a lot of cases, it was just because I came to it
sort of all over the place. And they're like, Well, how can I help you? I don't know.
systems if you had SOPs, IT systems and like your brand boards, and like all that kind of stuff in place, would it have helped?
Yeah, oh, my gosh, well, and I, I think about the, I don't want to say the irony, when I sit here in this, you know, seat and my recording studio, like talking to people on the podcast. And I certainly when I then meet people in real life, and they're like, Oh, I listened your podcast, and it's helped me so much. i There has not been a single instance, where I have been like, oh, great, every single time, it's like a, I don't want to say a
gut punch in a bad way. Like it's a gut punch in a good way. Because honestly, there's parts of me that, like, can't believe that I'm in that position, because I feel like I did it. So, so imperfectly, like the whole journey. And so again, when you're listening to us talk about systems and SOPs. And at least from my perspective, please understand that that did not come naturally. It wasn't straightforward. It was not perfect. But I still got there, and have learned all kinds of
lessons along the way. So if there can be
a lot of educators are the same. Yeah, I can stand here and say, yeah, like, get your systems in place, guys. But I think we come at it from a place of like, we learned a lesson. You know, and like, we got, like, all of our businesses are messy. And we're like, Yeah, this is how we could have been a
little bit better. But I think, from that place, you know, yeah, I think people underestimate the amount of time that is required to properly onboard a team member and have them in your business, they actually have to, like block time off. In the beginning, it's going to take you more time than it's gonna
save you. Yeah. And I think coming at it from that perspective, I think people automatically think, well, if I hire someone, I'm going to be free, you know, like, it's going to take so much off my plate it, it's not an immediate, right, that's an immediate satisfaction that happens by any means. You need to have the time to invest into into them.
Yeah, it is. It's one of those things where I, I waited until I needed someone and then my anticipation was somehow that like my magic business Fairy Godmother was going to show up and just be able to like, seamlessly integrate and do all the things. And of course, that's not the way that that worked, or can work. And so I do think that giving yourself if you anticipate that that time is coming six months or a year from now, then like now is the time to start in, in baby steps.
Yeah. Oh, 100%. Like the amount of times that some I was hired, and they just they weren't ready. You know, like, I think I think often that's, you have to really be ready to invest in hiring and outsourcing someone but systems, SOPs and outsourcing. Huge, huge impact on your bid business. And my favorite topic is talking about the tools in your business, right? And the tools that are helping you save time and your business, take the load off, prevent that burnout tools are, to my
mind, kind of the perfect in between point between like fully outsourcing and paying people to do all the things because that gets really expensive really quickly. But there are better and better tools all the time out there for all of the things whether it's managing your passwords, or
yeah, we're just such a good time of owning a business. Like all the technology advancements that are happening around us like we have it so good now, like had I known all these tools back when I was a wedding photographer, like there's no way like I would still be a full time wedding photographer. Yeah. You know, like, I quit I retired. I say I quit whatever from wedding photography, because I burned
out. Like, as, I mean, some wedding photographers that are listening to this won't quite even understand what it was like 10 years ago when you had to manually do pretty much everything like I don't recall programs like clickup or D script or you know, I don't even know if loom was around.
Okay, so talk to me about your favorites. I'm
going to I'm going to start with honey book because we already talked about that and I or honey book. So again, when I was doing this, I was creating Word documents for invoices or like the amount of work that went into just invoicing was insane. So honey book is one of my absolute favorites. I especially now their lead forms. I'm a honey book educator Are you do you use honey
book? What do you I don't I use dubsado But I certainly understand the overlap and have lots of friends who love honey book and I am a huge advocate of whatever CRM
hobby there's 17 Hats are all used almost all of them because with my business Sure, yeah. So a see a very good CRM, I think is number one important because that's like, I think often actually Invoicing is one of the things that people are nervous to outsource, right? Like, there's money, that can be exchanged financial information,
things like that. So I think having a really solid CRM, and building that out properly from the beginning, so not like, you know, having the workflows and the you know, having designing your invoice, things like that, that's all super important. My other favorite program, and I know that you're involved in this one as well is pick time. Delivering images in a beautiful way. Again, I used to do
Dropbox. And I'm like, oh, that even just like the passive income that can come from this, the sales from QuickTime pay for itself. And then lastly, which is something I'm super passionate about is imagine. Yeah, it's an AI calling and editing software. My favorite part about imagine though, and is the backup part because for me, like I said, I had that severe anxiety as a wedding photographer was like losing images. So I love that part, too. But imagine,
amazing Well, I love imagined to i, it this has been a long time coming me partnering with an AI tool for calling and editing. And I dragged my feet on it for a long time, because for a long time, I once I decided that editing was something that I no longer had the time to do myself, I found a human who I hired on Upwork, you know, one of these online places, and I have been working with her for years, a lot of
people know this story. She is based in the Ukraine, she's had to move her family several times, like I just would never fire her i Even though I've never met her in person we are I feel like it's I've been working with her for eight years, however, people would ask me, I would say you need to, you know, you've got at the beginning part stage of your client journey.
That CRM is indispensable. It's going to manage your contracts, it's going to manage your invoicing, your email, communication back and forth your to do list like all of those things are in your CRM. And then I have been forever a huge advocate of pick time, like one of the most incredible, I think the most incredible way to deliver photos in a beautiful way and make the most possible sales on those on those photos, because they are structured so well with all of their various
marketing tools. But that left that gap in the middle where I was saying, I have an editor who I love. And she is one human being that I can't clone and hand out to people, she doesn't have any she's not taking clients anymore, and has them for a while. And so I've always said Go find yourself an editor.
And then when AI editing started to come onto the scene, I was super excited, because I knew that that was going to be a much more budget friendly way for people to start to outsource their editing or take the bulk of their editing work away. But it took me a while to find one. And of course, it's like tricky for me to trial it since I'm like, Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to shoot this one. And this time, I'm going to try this new tool. And there's a learning curve, and it's time involved in
whatever. But that but when I found imagine, I was like these, this is not only the tool that I love, but it's also the company and the people that I want to partner with. And so I'm really excited to start this kind of collaboration just because I feel like there are a lot of people out there who are suffering with the time that it takes them to get their images finished. And whether you feel like you need to put your fingers on each deliverable
photo. Or if you're like, I just want to get it off my plate altogether. AI can get you so far, you know so much of the way there your tool is incredible for the way that it can you know the thing that's cool about AI editing as opposed to like presets. Yeah, is that because it is learning and because it has the sort of intelligence piece to it, it's able to look at each individual photo and understand like the lighting scenario here is different. The color casts here are different.
So this is what we're looking for as the final output. But this image needs different things in order to get to that place. Yeah,
yeah. Which is amazing. It like really hones in on consistency with something that just a normal preset will give you. If you were to apply a normal preset on like an underexposed image versus an overexposed it's going to apply the same settings on exactly with Yeah, so that AI editing does a really great job of doing
it consistently. And you know, and it's now there It were now that I'm thinking about it all three of these things that we talked about CRM, the gallery delivery, and the editing, all three of those not only save you time, but they help you create an amazing client experience, right? You're delivering your images faster, you're delivering it in a beautiful way. You're not. Again, when I was a wedding photographer, I would print out
a contract and sign it. So I'm like, just think about the elevated client experience that you're getting. But yeah, AI, I think a lot of photographers, maybe not so much like today, but maybe like a year ago, I was super nervous. We're all really nervous to adapt to AI. You know, I remember a chat TPT came out, I was like, I'm not using that. And now I like I live on
chat. Yeah. And I think that that is something that, you know, people initially think of when they think of a program, like imagine is like, oh, AI, like, it's scary. But realistically. So speaking about imagine, in particular, the way that you get started with imagine is you're uploading your
already edited images. So first of all, it's personalized to you, you're not gonna get just like a blanket, edit style, you know, it's not going to change the way you edit, it's not gonna change the later galleries look, in the end, you are really using your personal style to edit your images, you also have full control over the editing process. So once we apply your edits, you can still go in and review it and make adjustments, you can adjust your profile, you
can gesture images. So again, you're not what not only are you like, you know, you're a little hesitant to start AI to begin with. But the nice thing is you still have full control over this process.
Yeah. And I mean, it's not unlike documenting a process and turning it into a system. It's not unlike onboarding, someone who you're outsourcing work to. When you start with a new tool, like imagine, you have to build in a period of time where the workload actually gets a little bit heavier. So it's not going to just take it out of your hands, you have to go in, you have to train it do the work, it does tend to be to learn faster and be more consistent than sometimes people are when it
comes to outsourcing work. But on the other hand, like and it works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year for the same pay rate the whole time. Very, very reasonable pay
rate, like you said like it does, it is just like anything else, when you when you outsource work, it does take that bit of time in the beginning. So imagine you do you have a different a few different ways you can get started with the program. But one of them is to upload your already edited images into the program, which builds a personalized profile
for you. That does require going through your already edited images, right picking your favorite edits, picking, you know, the shoots that you're just like you adoring you're like that is the style I want to replicate. So you do have to put that legwork in the very
beginning. However, if, for example, you have a session tomorrow, and you're like, I just want to give this to try a give us a try immediately, we do have the option, you can just upload a preset into the program and that will kick off your profile. So it does it does require that time upfront. But there are shortcuts on getting started really quickly and really easily, which is nice. But no matter how you get started, that's the benefit of is it does spit out your edited images very quickly.
Consistently.
Yeah. And over the course of sort of, so you upload a gallery, it comes back with edits. And my understanding is that you can then adjust those edits and sort of re upload it. So it is exactly like working with a human editor in that way where you're saying, Okay, good job. Here are my notes. This is what I would have done differently. Yeah,
so you end up at the end, and you upload them back into the art system. And it trains that profile based on those adjustments that you just made. So the more and more you use it, the more and more it gets better. Like you know, we have a ton of photographers that they just like hit the button and walk away. And that's it because they've spent that time not only building their profile, but constructively constructively criticism. This isn't you know, they like hey, yeah, like I like this, but can
we adjust this a smidge? Yeah. And so you can do that in Lightroom. And then we'll and then re upload it back into the program. Or you can actually just go directly to your profile and adjust it. So if you're like I want to overall adjust my profile and make it a little bit more brighter. You can just adjust your entire profile in general.
Amazing. Well, I think that this is when this show drops is the perfect time. For anyone out there who's listening who has not dabbled in the AI editing process yet. now's a great time to start most of us are in sort of a period of some semi skilled Bonus depends on where you are. But, you know, set it up, take the time commit a few days one week to like calling through and getting some images to upload and let the
system digest them. And then your next few sessions or your next wedding or whatever, give it a go. But commit to yourself that you're going to go through the process. And when you make whatever adjustments to the edits that you make reupload do that training process. Because by the time that busy season hits, what you will have is on demand editing, that you can use as much or as little as you
want. The other nice thing and we didn't even talk about this, when you hire a person, there is this sense of responsibility where that person is depending on you to give them the amount of work that you've promised to give them. So a lot of people will hesitate to hire a VA or anything like that, because they say, Well, you know, it's busy right now. But in two months, I'm not going to have any work at all for them. Especially
because a lot of them require like retainers, right, like 20 hours a month or right.
Whereas the way that imagines payment process is structured, you're not committed to anything. You're just you're paying when you need it. Yeah, exactly.
You're right, like, and that's kind of like I'm telling everyone right now, like get started now build your profile. Now your October SELF is going to
fail. Thank you. Exactly. So good. Yeah,
totally. And, and the other thing I want to talk about, again, is like the backup source, so I don't know if a lot of people know this. It's not something that we it's not as fancy as the calling and the editing feature, which is like probably everybody's favorite, but the backup storage. So any sessions that you run through imagine you have the option of
backing up to our system. So your images are like 100% secure, and I don't I guess maybe it's just me, but like when I was a wedding photographer that kept me up at night? Absolutely, yes. Finally a solution for that. And it happens like very seamlessly, like AI technology is happening so fast. And that's kind of how I felt like when I was offered the job. And imagine I was like I couldn't be on the boat. Because if I'm not on the boat, I'm off the boat like.
Absolutely. And that standard of being able to turn photos around in a shorter period of time and being able to, to know that you're not going to I'm going to bring it back kind of to the beginning of our conversation, which is that like we build these businesses, with the idea that we're going to be able to set our own hours
and do all this stuff. And then very quickly, we get roped into because we are doing all of the things, especially if you happen to be at that place where you haven't really gotten into systems or haven't really gotten into outsourcing, we get into a place where there are so many little things that we are doing each and every day that like it can, it can totally overthrow that whole point. I mean, if you have ever said yourself, I wish I could just clock in and then clock out like that. That's
where you are. Yeah, I said it too, for sure. But I really do. I'm excited. Again, like I am honored that you guys were interested in partnering with me, I am really excited for this partnership. Because I don't have many partnerships, the ones that I do are the tools that I really deeply believe are going to make a giant impact not only in the business is of photographers, but also just in their lives and in what they're able to deliver to their clients. And so thank you. Thank you. Yes,
no, I mean, we love you. I mean, as you know, we've loved you for a long time. Anyways, yeah, that's like I was fangirling. Because your name was just, you're just such a big voice in the industry and help so many people. So when I saw you, it's just like, oh, my gosh,
so sweet. Amazing. Okay, so if people want to try out, imagine I do have a link, I've actually got a whole page on my website devoted to it. So you go to thiscantbethathard.com/imagine. And then what's the process from there, they're
going to click on your link, they are going to get 1500 Free edits that they can play around in those 1500 Free edits are only they count towards just what you're editing and what you're exporting. So first of all, I would suggest people click on your link, install the program and start building their profile. And then use those 1500 Free edits once they're ready to try it out. And
that's it. That's it. Just get started building the profile, obviously imagine has amazing customer support team, you know, people can email me and I'm more than happy to help them but I think just taking the first step and building their profiles number one,
amazing and then I am gonna redirect to you. Because I feel like your sort of voice of common reason is an thing that this industry needs more of, and I imagine lots of people out there listening might want to come directly with you what's the best way for them to
do that? You know what I kind of like the secret ninja that I don't like I don't love talking about myself too much but so I actually just took my website down last week, which I'm kind of sad about him I put it back up but anyways, @NoellaAndres on Instagram. And if anyone has any questions even about like imagine or business coaching or anything like that they can email me Noela dot A at Imagine slash ai.com
That was a mouthful, which is okay, because we'll link it in the show notes so it'll all be there. Amazing. Well, Noah, thank you so much for all of this and and I will be talking to you very soon again.
We will. Okay, see you later. All right, bye. Bye.
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 liked 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.