As of February 11, 2017 I am finally in my “off-season” until May. However, my off-season is rarely relaxed any more. This is time time when I brainstorm a ton of projects and get to work on things that I really feel will better my business in the coming year. Wait – did you hear that? I’m doing things for this coming year. Meaning, 2016 is *wrapped up*. This is all thanks to workflow and systems, and I feel like using my off-season to look forward and gain momentum is a huge part of my business success. So what am I up to between now and May?
Albums: I may purchase a few sample albums to have here in my office, but more than that I am working on creating custom albums for the venues and planners I really love. I’ll have them printed and then hand-deliver.
Clients: Setting up everything in my workflow and systems to be even better this year, with automated emails, a custom Client Concierge phone number, and private Client Lounge on my website. I’m also following up on 2016 album designs (hey, can’t win at it all… 🙂
Computer: I store a lot of my working business files in Dropbox, and they are all organized. I’ll likely do what Soozie mentioned, and go back to delete old RAWs and ensure I have enough working space on a single hard drive for the 2017 season. I also might change my background on my computer, because, what else do you do in the off-season? Ha!
Gear: I need to send my gear out for cleaning of sensors, and so that will finally get done now that I’m not photographing weddings until May. I also have a bunch of gear to sell!
Office/studio: Work at getting the permanent marker off of my dry erase board, thanks to my toddler.
Photography: I want to photograph my daughter more this off-season! I feel like a terrible parent, but sometimes I forget to photograph my most prized person! I also want to research some more about print competition and work on creating in my mind what my submission would look like, so that I can do my best to execute that idea on an actual wedding day.
Product packaging/stationery: I just went through a mild rebrand, so I’ll be ordering new Thank You notes, business cards, and packaging. This is nothing too crazy, but needed. I also want to create a client magazine to send to my brides when they reserve their wedding date.
Website/portfolio: Again, with the rebrand comes a change in my website, but that’s OK because I love this kind of work! I have some ideas on where I’d like to go with the changes, and just need to rearrange galleries, and layouts.
Workshops/Education: I have a lot of educational materials I am putting together in this off-season, and I also want to try and get my feet wet in the podcasting world!
Personal: Print photos of my daughter from the past six months. Lots of yoga. Baking. Spending time at Deep Creek Lake. Cleaning my house!
