Ep 172: Check Your Tech with Colie James

spends. And then sparked this whole conversation in the comments about why she spends what she spends how that evolved. People were asking questions about, like, is this going to help my business, I don't think I need this, that sort of stuff. And I sent her a text and was like, Yeah, you need to come back on the podcast. And we're going to talk text X. Every photographer uses technology to some degree or

another, right? Whether you're just using Adobe to edit your photos, or perhaps you just are using Gmail, because you're a film photographer, and you do things super old school. The truth of the matter is that most of us rely on not one, not two, but several pieces of technology in order to run a business, everything from bringing new clients into giving them a good experience to managing the photos themselves, delivering the photos, all of that requires

technology. But it can be really easy to let your so called tech stack get away from you. You can have too many pieces of technology that you're paying for and you don't really need all of you can also spend so much time and energy avoiding the cost of technology that you end up handicapping your business because you are having to do things manually that

technology is really good at. So today, I am excited to bring Koli back on the show to talk through all the nuances of what kind of technology you need to be using in your business. What you can do to make sure that you're only paying for the stuff that you really do need, and maximizing the pieces that you pay for. 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. Hey, Colie James, welcome back to this can't be that hard. How are you?

talk about tech enough. So I'm excited for this conversation.

spending on tech each month. And then I was like, oh, but you know, I'm spending more than you would because not only am I a photographer, but I'm also a course creator, and I do all of these other things. And so then I was getting one breakdown of all of my expenses for tech. And then I started breaking it down to okay, but this is for the core side. And this is for the

photography side. And then I started thinking to myself, you know, I don't think people you know, really examine their tech stack frequently enough, because every once in a while when I get a dubsado client and they Come to me. And now I specifically ask everyone to give me their tech stack. It's the very first form that I give everybody. And then I asked them, are you hoping to eliminate this piece of software, you know, during

this VIP day. And so I think it's interesting that quite a few of my clients are paying for software that they no longer need, because they're afraid to let it go. Or they're afraid to kind of combine everything in one piece of software, because then what happens if that one piece of software isn't working? I mean, I don't necessarily

think that it's like valid. But from the same perspective, I just think that everyone should be looking at their monthly bills to make sure that you're not paying for something that you don't need to because 10 $20 a month, guys, if you're doing it multiple times, that really adds up.

masterclass. Yes, I definitely need to. I mean, and I'm not paying the full amount. I had it on like that hiatus thing where you only pay $10 a month. But like, I've still been paying $10 A month because I'm just scared to let it go. Because I think I'm going to need it again. I mean, that's absolutely ridiculous. Yeah. So you got to evaluate your tech, I mean, don't just pay for things. Because of course, that's what people hope for when you join a subscription is that you're too

lazy. Or you just don't think to cancel it. And so you just keep on paying over and over and over and over.

another close to a year. And then they wouldn't give me my money back. Even though I didn't even have their modem anymore. I was like, I'm not getting your internet service. And they were like, Well, you didn't cancel it. So moral of the story, don't be me. Oh, my goodness, I know, frustrating. Um, anyway, well, so let's kind of start from the

beginning. Because the thing about tech is that you buy it one piece at a time, and you sort of think like, or you subscribe to it, or whatever, and you sort of think, Okay, I'm going to commit to this next $35 a month, whatever. But as soon as it's just kind of in your business or running or on your credit card and running, it can be easy to kind of forget about

it. And then like the next bright shiny thing comes along, and sometimes you end up purchasing stuff that duplicates or makes one obsolete, whatever. So if you are starting a photography business, what do you think are the like baseline, you have to have these pieces of tech in your in your stack?

your clients. And then I think that every photographer needs online gallery software in order to deliver the images. Now, someone could come back and say, Oh, but clearly, I could always deliver it in Dropbox or Google. And I would argue that, you know, well, that used to be acceptable, like seven, eight years ago, no one should still be doing that now, because Dropbox doesn't have pretty

links, right? Dropbox doesn't allow your clients to have you know, emails that show previews of images and any of those kinds of things. So even though the bare minimum is you just need to be able to charge people money, send them a contract. and basically communicate with them

going forward. I would love it if everyone would have a CRM and an online gallery software together, because that is the perfect combination for any photographer to get their clients all the way from inquiry to delivery of the images.

gallery software. The website brings people in dubsado, books them and communicates with them all the way until delivery, and then pick time gives them their images and allows them to buy product. On top of those. I need a way to edit my images, which I mean, I do, but also I have editors now. So I technically don't. Yeah, but yes, I still play Adobe every month. Yeah, I mean, we need that. So that is really baseline tech. Now we've got all of these other things that come with the other parts

of being an entrepreneur. So for example, what how are you marketing, if you're doing a newsletter, you need email marketing software, if you are creating graphics, and you don't want to do them in Photoshop, you might have a canvas subscription. If you are selling films, or you're making How to videos, you might have Vimeo to store those things. But let's come back to what the question was that you said originally was that people buy their software,

one piece at a time. And they kind of forget about the functions of the software that they have when they get interested in a new shiny piece of software. So I will say, one of the things that I realized when I made that tech post on Instagram a few months ago, was Vimeo, when I wasn't looking, all of a sudden lets you trim and edit your video. It also lets you do screen captures, I had no idea. So I'm still paying for loom professional to do

those things. When I could have been doing them on Vimeo, which makes a lot of sense for me. Because I'm a filmmaker, I cannot give up Vimeo. I mean Vimeo is where I have all my showcases. It's where I upload all my client films. But I definitely don't need loom when that subscription comes up for

renewal. Because everything that loom does, I have now discovered that Vimeo does, but I have no idea when Vimeo did that, because I wasn't doing a good job of like, manually checking in with my software like I should to figure out what new features my software has added.

Another really good example of this is almost every CRM now has a scheduler, but a lot of people either don't pay attention, or they don't realize that if you've been paying for acuity or Calendly, for years, you might be comfortable, it just might be what you're used to. And you don't want to take the opportunity to use this new scheduler that your CRM has. But you could eliminate one more subscription. If you did that. I would also argue it's much

better for automation. Because if you're using a scheduler that's inside your CRM, you're going to be able to tie things like when someone schedules an appointment, all of these things to like next steps in your workflow. But when you're using two separate pieces of software to do that, they can't always communicate with each other when something happens in one. And then you want to do something in another. So I think the lesson here is, even if you love all of your software, software is

constantly evolving, right? And so every six months, every year, you should basically sit down with the list of software's that you're paying, you should have how much you're paying each month. And you should look at the tasks that that piece of

software allows you to do. You should also look in whatever, you know, new feature section your piece of software has so that you don't completely miss some new feature that they've added that will allow you to eliminate a separate subscription that you might have been paying for it for the last five or six years.

can very quickly get that way. I love this idea of periodically auditing the You features and your different systems, what I find is that a lot of people will. Okay, here's an example of this. So pick time, which we both use and love as a gallery software. I feel like they're really smart about looking around and saying like, what pieces of tech? Can we add in here? That or what features can we add to pick time so that people can eliminate other items

from their tech stack? And one of the big ones that they did in the last year was they rolled out a slideshow builder so that you can so any photographer who wants to create slideshows from your their images can do so under the pic time umbrella, really beautiful slideshows? So I was talking about that a lot because I use slideshows with my clients and, and a lot of people are super happy and have moved over to pick times native

slideshow builder. And then there's these holdouts who say, Yeah, I'm not leaving my slideshow builder, because I don't love all the music options that pic time offers or something like that. And so they're paying, in some cases, we're talking about, like 40 $50 a month for a separate slideshow builder. And my response to that, and then I like on the one hand, I get it, you know, you want the music is an important part of a slideshow. But also,

what's the ROI? Like? What is the difference in what your client is paying you? If you're saving that $50 A month versus spending that $50 a month? And I'm not saying I have the answer to that I'm saying that the answer to that in my business is for sure that I should use the

native in house app. So. So I do think that there's a little bit of that, like you sometimes you have to change up the way that you do something a little bit or you have to be willing to invest the time to learn how to kind of change over which can be hard. It's a barrier, but it can be a very big money saver too.

time. I mean, it takes way less time than it takes me to make a film. So when pic time first put the slideshow out, I was like, Oh, I don't really care about that. I'm still going to do what I do. And then I tried it. And when I tell you that I almost cried. Because it took i No one thinks about the time that it takes you to upload images into a piece of software, what I was doing was, you know, make doing the images, editing them in Lightroom, exporting them, you know, into a folder, dragging

them into Premiere Pro. And while it was only taking me, maybe four to five minutes to make the slideshow, I then had to wait for it to export. I then had to upload it to Vimeo, I had to change the privacy settings, I had to copy the link into pic time, then my slideshow would show when I realized that using the integrated one and tick time meant I only had to upload the images one time. And then I could make the slideshow. And then I could put the slideshow

in their gallery. And then I could even make it to where the client could download that automatically. I I literally cried. And I was like, Okay, I never thought that I would use this now. I just want to say I am very guilty of paying for multiple music subscriptions, when I probably don't need to, and anyone listening to this podcast, please remember, I make family films. So I spend over $1,000 a year just on music subscriptions, but I use my

music. I use it a lot. So when people come to me and they tell me that they hate the music and pick time or whatever it is, I'm always like, Oh, but that's fine. I just grab it from music that or Firefly or you know one of the other premium music subscriptions that I have. Just want to put it out there guys, you guys have that option. Now music that is rather pricey. And so if you don't make films, I there's no way that I would ever recommend that someone paid for

that just for slideshows. But Firefly is only a couple $100. And they actually have some really decent music way better than what is integrated in a pic time. So if you're really unhappy about the music, I would still push you to use pic time because of the ROI on your time, right. And then you can save the money that you were spending on the other slideshow software.

And you can spend a little bit of money on a music subscription and get even better music that you can use for your clients for probably exactly the same amount of money. But the product that you put out is going to be so much better because the music is going to be awesome. And it's also going to save you time because you're not uploading your images to two different people. to some software, and then copying it from one to the other. Yeah, I mean,

have tried to provide that. And then versus having sort of the piece of tech that works perfectly for this one task or a couple of tasks, where do you strike a balance there.

personal experience. So I am not talking about this as actual user experience. I'm talking about it as when people come to me and they tell me that you know, they're using this all in one. So pixie set is one that is trying to be all in one, it's an online gallery software, they have kind of come into the CRM category a little bit. And then now they're doing websites. But the problem with using a piece of software like that is that your website does two things, it is your business card to the

world. But it's also how people find you using SEO. So I would argue that if you're using any of those photos, specific websites, those are never optimized to give you good SEO, the blogs are not great. I mean, they're beautifully displayed. But I don't think of a website as somewhere that you're displaying your work, there are other places that you can do that. The website has to bring people to you, from the outside world that have no idea who you are through Google, that's the

power of a website. So when it comes to your website, I never recommend that you use one of those all in ones, because you are going to severely lack the SEO perspective, because my entire business was built on SEO like I don't get clients from social media. And so it's really important that I'm on page one or two of Google, because for my photography, business, that's how I get clients that and word of mouth. But when you're brand new, I mean, you know, do you

get word of mouth? No. And then the second part of what Pixy said did was the CRMs. Now, CRMs have a lot of different functions at the base core, they are so that you can book your clients and communicate with them. But then there's the whole other piece of your CRM, which is the saving you time and money through automations. So that you are not doing the administrative tasks manually over and over again, the online gallery software's that attempt to do CRM, like functions, none of

them have automations. Because shoot proof also has integrated payments and contracts now, but there's no way to automate anything else after that. Right. So again, it depends on what kind of software you're looking at, for the all in one. But websites and CRMs are ones that I would forever recommend that people stay away, because the real value between those are

Google and then automations. And you don't get those well enough in some of the all in one features are all in one software's that people look at. Now, you and I both use dubsado. You and I both use pick time. Those are not really considered all in ones, but they do eliminate other pieces of software, right, which is where I think everyone should go,

right. So like for dubsado, you can eliminate separate invoicing, separate contracts, a separate scheduler, you know, you don't need you can always use your Gmail to communicate with your clients. But the CRM lets you do it inside of it. So it brings several pieces of your business together. But it's not considered an all in one because there are no blogs. There is no website. You can't you know, how's your online galleries

there and do this? Now I will say even though I'm at the Sato girl guys, sprout studio is as close to an all in one that I would ever recommend to photographers. Yeah, I don't recommend it to those of us who do simple sales. So if you're a simple Sales User, I do not recommend sprout studio just because you would lose the automation that pic time provides for the selling of the

collections. But if you are a regular photographer and you are looking for an all in one, I would highly recommend that you give sprout studio look. It does a lot of things and it doesn't have a website. So again, I think I'd safe and say, I would look at that plus a website. Yeah, but it does, how's your online galleries, it does let you do email marketing. It does. It does all of the CRM functions like booking your clients at

communicating. But in general, I want people to try to stay away with just paying for an all in one, just because you think it will solve all your problems without looking at the individual tasks, and then how good or bad it is, at doing those individual essential functions in your business.

it. If you think about the core functions of your business, like what are the things you need to do, you need to bring clients and so you need a website, social media and all that sort of stuff can like fall into the same category, but your your kind of powerhouse for that is going to be this website. And then the serving them is going to be the your CRM and your gallery software. And then in the the replay part at the end is I would think gonna be your CRM.

still exist. Now, I know a lot of photographers do that, but I'm actually with you, I use my CRM to reserve my clients, because I will put notes in my CRM, like, you know, contact or even put an email to automatically send in six months to ask them if it's time to start thinking about their next session, or things like that. So the reserving might look different, depending on what kind of clients you have.

Because like, for example, if you are a workhorse to talk about autonomous businesses, if you're a workhorse, and you serve a lot, you know, you're very high volume, you do many sessions you do those kinds of things, a newsletter might be more appropriate for you. Because when you do your mini sessions, two, three times a year, you're going to be sending that blast to everyone on your list with a calendar scheduler or whatever it is that you're doing to bring those people in

to get them booked quickly. For you, it's gonna be all about automation, versus someone like me, I'm not quite a unicorn, but I do contact my clients manually individually throughout the year and be like, hey, you know, how's how's school going? Are you glad for summer? What are your plans? You know, just keep in mind, I'm starting to book for September and October. If you want a session in that timeframe, let's go ahead and you know, compare calendars or

whatever it is that I'm doing. I can totally do that either through Gmail through text message, because I have a lot of my clients phone numbers that we text like that, or I could set myself up reminders in my CRM. So there's multiple ways to do the reserving depending on what kind of business you have.

silo of that thing. What I think I was trying to then get to is that within each one, whereas there may be all in ones or multi multi purpose pieces of software out there that serve multiple purposes, you want to get good clarity on like, within this part of my business, these are the things that are the most important and not get too enticed about simplifying beyond those kind of basic silos. Does that make sense?

And I can't quite figure out the right words to get it across to those people, that there is a problem with the simplicity. There is a reason that once you get into that CRM, and you've added all your clients and you've gotten it set that, and then you start bumping into Oh, but this doesn't do this, right doesn't do that. Yes, but you chose that on purpose because it

was simple. But it's simple, because it's not in a position to help you scale and grow your business by, you know, automating the tasks that you know, in year six, you shouldn't still be doing the same things you were doing in year one and two, right? So I always feel like if I can grab those people sooner, and like, shake them and tell them no, I realized that it's enticing to only pay $20 a

month. But if you pay $40 a month, you won't have to go through the stress and the time and the money to change your business from now to later. And I think a lot of them think Oh, but even though it's simple, it will serve me now. But if you have the goal of like, running a business and not having an expensive side hustle, you will hit that point where you have to do less, to make more much quickly, much quicker than any

of us ever anticipated. Yeah. And so I just, I just can't find the words to like, get people to see that. And I mean, you know, at the end of the day, they get to make their own decisions. And a lot of them do choose to be simple, you know, in the tech, but then I'm always, you know, like, Okay, I give it a year, I give it a year before they're looking for a new solution. And then by then they've just invested all that time. Because I mean, that is the other

problem of your tech stack. When you're evaluating your tech stack, I think a lot of us might see the holes, or might see that, okay, this piece of tech that I'm paying for, isn't quite doing what I need it to do. But I don't have the time, the brain capacity or the money to make the switch. So I mean, what is it that you do? Do you? Do you take a pause? Do you find the money? Do you? Do you find the time? Do you do that so that you

can make the switch? Or do you just keep on using the piece of software that is moderately serving your business, but could be doing so much more, if you could just hop over to another? Another piece? Yeah, or you

in the beginning. But I also think that if that is where you are in your journey, one of the best pieces of advice that I can give you is to find someone who is five to 10 years beyond where you are in your business, ask them what they're using, whether they're happy with it, what the pros are, what the cons are, I mean, you can skip that and just listen to me and Koli right now.

But I would never suggest that you shouldn't do your research, find somebody who is sort of running a business, like the kind of business that you'd like to run, find one of those people who is happy with what they have. And then honestly, like there is we do a lot of like reinventing the wheel for ourselves. And as entrepreneurs, sometimes you don't always have to do that, especially with stuff if tech is not like your forte. Ask somebody else, like just copy what they're doing.

And I think that those kinds of lessons can save us so much time and headache, and ultimately money even if they feel like the more expensive solution on the front end.

Because and I know some of you guys are like, Well, what does it have to do with tech, but like Nikon, for me was the best solution, because it allows me to switch back and forth between photos and videos so fast. And so I don't know that I would have grown my business and been able to continue to offer that photo and video in the same session. If like, for example, I had stuck with Canon, it was way too much time consuming to switch between them in a session. I was missing moments,

I was doing all these things. So once I got to a piece of tech, like my camera that allowed me to do what I needed to do faster. I went all in, and I just see the system software's that you use to run your business in the same way.

hard earned information. and to inform your own decisions in that regard. But this is, yeah, I wish I had had this conversation to listen to myself, six or seven years ago, like I needed this so much. So I'm so happy that we're having this conversation.

are different. Software is the same, believe it or not, there are between pieces of software, you do gain some things and you do lose some things. But at the end of the day, if you go into a piece of software, like a CRM, and you feel completely lost every time you go in there, no matter how many times someone explains it to you, that's probably not the software for

you. Right? So I would just encourage you guys, you know, when you look at all of the CRMs, or the gallery, software, or all of those things, yes, it's good to get a pros and cons list. Yes, it's good to ask people that you admire that are further along and the type of

business that you want. But it's also super important that you open the piece of software, and you just click around Yeah, to make sure that you don't then commit your time and your energy on a piece of software that always feels foreign, right? Because I've known a few people who left honey book to go to dubsado, and then ended up going back to honey book. And it was, you know, at the end of the day, they said that the interface of honey book made more sense to

them. And I can't I mean, I can't argue against that, right? It's whatever makes you most comfortable in your business. So when you go to any piece of software, I mean, Vimeo loom, whatever it is, I would always go on the back end. And like load a gallery, for example, if you're thinking of pic time, like do those kinds of actions to make sure that you are comfortable using it before you make the commitment. Yeah.

will change your life. And well, so anyway, um, but yeah, let everybody know, just in case they somehow have missed our other episodes together where they can find you and tell us about your new podcast.

like automates. In business we don't talk of as photographers, we don't talk about the business side. Often enough. We don't talk about the numbers. We don't talk about the things that make us uncomfortable for the decisions that help us grow and feel joyous in our business, which is something that I am focusing on each and every day. Now that I am 40 I don't make decisions that don't make me happy anymore. But of course, we all have to get to that point.

So my podcast is me talking about the decisions that you should make in your business, but also bringing on awesome experts like autonomy to come talk about what makes their businesses successful. So I hope to see you or I hope you come to listen.

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.