Ep 192: The Photographer's Work Wheel

a podcast for you this week. And I wanted to make sure that it wasn't going to be anything that was too heavy, or too difficult to focus on, if you were busy doing something like driving, or maybe out taking a walk to get away from too much family or

whatever the case may be. And maybe you're listening to this at an entirely different time of year, which is also okay, I've got a, I've got a fun kind of thought exercise for you today that I am gonna just talk you through this, if you are listening at the end of the year

is an exciting time. Right, I generally find that by the end of the holiday season, I start to get excited about what is just around the corner, which is in some ways, and this is kind of funny, but it in some ways, this quiet season that we are coming into is one of my favorite times of year in my business, historically, I get into the first week or two of the year, my batteries are feeling recharged, I am feeling really motivated after the busy

season. And I'm starting to think about all the different opportunities that might come my

way. And the next year, the things that I want to see happen in my business, I'm sort of doing that goal setting or vision casting or whatever you want to call it right and, and so this week, and actually next week, as well, I have put together two short episodes, sharing a couple of simple exercises that I want you to do, as you sit down to kind of think about what is yet to come, I wanted these to be quick, I wanted them to be easy, I've actually created a download for

you to facilitate this, it's not going to cost you any money to do these exercises. And it's really not actually going to cost you all that much time. What it can do, however, is save you a ton of time. Because I think that when we are in this season of excitement and wide open enthusiasm about you know, what am I going to do next in my business, if we're not intentional about it, sometimes we can start down a path that isn't necessarily the next right

thing for us to work on. Right, we can get excited about something and put all of our resources toward that thing. And by the time that we are finishing that up, life has started to kick back in, we're getting busy again. And we don't necessarily get around to all of the things. So the two exercises that I want you to go through are going to hopefully help you set your intentions a little bit more intentionally. The first and the one that I want to talk to you about today is called the

work wheel. And if you've heard of a life wheel, it's a similar kind of an exercise that is sort of process that's used with a lot of life coaches might help you with something called a life wheel. I've modified it and made it so that it's going to be more specific to your business. And then next week, I'm going to be talking you through another exercise called the journey map.

So again, I've made a download and the download is actually for both this week's episode and next week, week's episode, so I'll talk about it again next week. But you can get both of those at this can't be that hard.com/ 2023 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 as entrepreneurs, we wear all the hats in our business, right? We do all the different things. And what I have found over time is that I'm always off kilter in one

direction or the other. I think it's just really really difficult if not impossible to establish a business that is perfectly balanced when you're the one doing everything because inevitably problems come up, you encounter something that you weren't expecting or you don't really know how to handle so you have to go down the rabbit hole of like figuring out how to fix it and you put a lot of attention on one side of your business only to turn around a

day or a week. or a month later and realize, like, oh, I have completely gotten behind on my bookkeeping, or, you know, working on that other project that I thought I was going to be focusing on totally fine, very, very normal, but something that we always have to keep an eye on. So the new year when most of us don't have a ton of work lined up, and hopefully, again, we are feeling refreshed and sort of rejuvenated after the

busy season. And then the holiday season, this season can be a really great time to take a step back, survey our business from the 10,000, or the 30,000 foot view, assess what is working, what's not working, and then recalibrate so that we head into the next season with as much balance as possible. So today, I want to talk about this simple tool that I recently came

across. And like I said, modified a little bit for us as photographers, and I'm calling it the work wheel, even though it's traditionally known as a life wheel. And I think that this is a tool that might really help you quickly and in a different kind of way, assess how that balance is for you. So the work wheel gives you the opportunity to map out how you believe your attention has been focused, and then compare that to how you would like your attention to be focused and

prioritized. And the idea is really simple. So again, you've got a download, where you can actually just go and print this out so that you don't have to make it up yourself. But in case you're driving, and you're not looking at the download, right this minute, I want you to imagine a bullseye. So a standard Bullseye right, and you've got the around the perimeter of the bullseye, you've got all the different areas of your business that

require your resources. So whether that's your time, or your money, or your attention, or all three, these areas are the things that kind of push and pull you in different directions. So I have put six down that I think are probably applicable to most of us, you could tweak these if you wanted to, but I have categorized them

as skills. So your art skills, your business skills, you know, this is where you take a class for something or you buy, you know, buy a piece of equipment, and you have to learn how to use it. So those are your skills, then there's your tools. And that would be the actual piece of equipment, right? So gear or software, those kinds of things are the tools that we use in our business. The third category that I have listed here is your

systems and workflow. So that is where you go from kind of doing what's right in front of you, and just kind of playing this ever everlasting game of whack a mole in your business to systematizing things and making it so that you always know exactly where you are, whether it's with your bookkeeping, or with your client workflow, or any other part of your business. Then the fourth area that I have identified is your marketing and

your inquiries area. So how, you know how much attention and time are you dedicating to getting new business in the fifth is your income and your profit margin. So you know that I'm a big proponent of running your numbers regularly, at least once a year, even more frequently when you're newer in business and things are more in flux. But identifying you know, how much money is coming in? What is the

profit margin? How much you know, how does the income that's coming in compared to the expenses that are going out? That is an area of your business that needs

attention ongoing over time. And then the sixth area you guys know that I talked about this can't be that hard helps photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love, right enjoyment of what you do should be a priority on your wheel, if you will, I want to make sure that you are checking in with yourself regularly paying attention, am I doing things that are aligned with the reason that I went into

business in the first place. So as I said, these may not be the only six that you want to include, you may want to take one out and replace it with something else, I would say limit yourself to no more than eight areas. You don't need to break this down into every little nitty gritty detail. We just kind of want to go for the big ones, right. So I think these six are a good place to start. If you want to tweak it a

bit. You certainly can. But if you have got in your mind this bullseye with these sort of areas around the perimeter, then there are going to be spokes that go from the center of the bullseye out to those points around the perimeter and in the middle you have the rings of the bullseye right, we're going to start in the middle, that's number one, and then there's a ring that goes around that number two, number three, number four, etc, all the way out to the 10th and the 10th Ring is

the perimeter ring. And for each area of your business. I want you to assess from one to 10 And how well you feel you are doing in that area? Like, how is your How are your marketing efforts going? How are your systems working? Do you feel like you've got all the systems you need? And they're all dialed in? Or like, you're kind of halfway there? Like, give yourself a

five? Or if that's an area where like, you really need to focus on that, maybe that's a one or two, how much are you enjoying what you do in the day to day in your business? Is that on the high end? Or on the low end? How do you feel like your skills are? Is there a big gaping hole? Like, do you need to learn off camera flash? Or do you need to, you know, sit down with someone who can teach you how to use your bookkeeping software, like there's all different kinds of

things. And I want you to kind of think these things through, it's not super scientific, this is a bit of a gut check. And then I want you to put a dot for each of the areas around the perimeter on that one to 10 sort of scoring. So what you're going to end up with is a bunch of dots. And I want you to connect those dots around your circle around your work wheel, and you're going to get this kind of amoeba looking thing, right?

Because some areas of your business are going to be working better than others, some are going to be weaker. And that's to be expected. It's you know, it's not only okay, but I would say the goal isn't necessarily to make a perfect circle, I guess it would be great. If everything were a perfect 10. Like, it's all going great, great, great. But if that's the case, chances are you aren't listening to a business podcast anyway. Because I probably don't have anything to share with you

or to teach you. So what we are trying to do here is assess where we are right now and see where our weakest spots are. Because the truth is that we generally tend to put more effort and more attention toward the things that we are more

excited about. Right. So if you kind of dig marketing, and the and the, I don't know, the puzzle that is getting new people in, you probably put a lot of effort toward marketing, but maybe that has come at the expense of, you know, reaching clients that you're excited to work with. And that has started to take a toll on your enjoyment of your business. So then you know, that marketing number may be really high. But the enjoyment number is really low.

Once you know what your weaker areas are, then you can kind of take control of what your natural urges are, you know, maybe you're somebody who always wants to buy new gear or take more online classes. And you know, you dive into those things with a lot of enthusiasm, because that's what you enjoy doing. But when you use a tool, like the work we'll hear, you're going to see like, okay, yes, that would be my first inclination would be to sign up for another conference to go to.

But what I really need to be focused on this season or you know, the top of my list this year, is going to be implementing this new system or dialing in my workflow. Once you know what the areas are, then you can prioritize them as you plan your goals for January or the first quarter or even the whole year. So that's it. Like I said, it's a really simple exercise. It just gives you I mean, we are all visual people.

And I think that this work will gives you a visual representation of where your business is and gives you a really quick and dirty way to figure out what it is that you need to work on next. So again, go to this can't be that hard.com/ 2023 to grab the work wheel that I have already pre built for you, you can print it out and just go with that and you will for sure want to tune in next week to learn about the journey map that one is a little

bit more complicated. I think it's probably a little bit more useful. But I went ahead and put both of those tools into the same download. So sometime in this week or next Be sure to grab the download and I wish you a very Happy New Year. 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.