Some years ago, a friend of mine was starting her photography business. She was shooting weddings every weekend and trying to keep up with the editing during the week.
She. was going. CRAZY.
Not just like, sort of crazy. But really super crazy. She had no time to spend with her friends, she was cutting it close to her client deadlines, she didn’t have time to keep up with client emails and requests, she wasn’t making the money she wanted to make, and her business was moving nowhere.
I mean sure, her business was successful. But it was stagnant. It wasn’t moving forward into bigger and better things.
She knew she needed help.
She was spending hours in front of her monitor editing, blogging, creating albums, etc., when she needed to be spending that time marketing, networking, creating, and expanding her business.
Or, ya know, actually taking some time off and not working 15-hour days 7 days a week (yikes…)
So she hired me to start doing her editing, album design, and other behind-the-scenes stuff, which freed up tons of time in her schedule.
Guess what she started doing?
She started marketing more. She started networking more. She expanded her services. Plus she regained some of her sanity, since she wasn’t trying to do all of those things on top of her regular workload.
She expanded her business enough that she rented her first studio space.
And guess what else started to happen?
She started making more money.
She started doing in-person sales, since she actually had time to sit down with her clients and go over their photos with them, and easily doubled, if not tripled, her normal average sales amount.
And since she was able to do more marketing, she was able to increase her client base substantially, and find the clients that really valued her work instead of the ones that were just trying to see how much of a discount they could get.
She was even able to expand her services and offer more types of photography, and created another side-business off-shoot of her main photography business just for women’s portraiture and boudoir photography.
But this would have never been possible if she hadn’t made the decision to start outsourcing.
Ok. That might be an exaggeration. She might have eventually got there, but definitely not as quickly. Plus she would have had a lot more weeks of 15-hour days.
So how can outsourcing help your business?
Well just like my friend, you can:
1. Do more marketing – Bring in more clients, and focus on bringing in the right clients.
2. Do more networking – Get in touch with other industry professionals and form professional relationships
3. Expand your business – Want to try a new type of photography or add to your list of services?
4. Make More Money!
The benefits of outsourcing really operate under one principle: time. Your time as a business owner is invaluable, and if you’re not using it to make money, you have to start re-thinking what you’re doing.
And if you spend the time you would have previously spent editing or designing albums or whatever doing any of the things above, you will easily make back the money you spent on outsourcing, and then some.
Say you outsource 4 hours-worth of editing, and it costs you $150. But now let’s say you use that 4 hours you would have spent editing or blogging or whatever doing in-person sales instead, and you make a $500 sale (and honestly, most people that I know that do in-person sales make WAY more per sales session, and usually average closer to $1,000). You spent $150 on the outsourcing, but gained $500 on the sale, giving you a net of $350.
See that? You made your money back, and then some. How awesome is that.
Let’s say you do that on average once a week. That gives you a gross increase in profit of over $18,200/year. ($350 x 52 = $18,200)
See where I’m going with this? The same goes for marketing and networking – if you’re spending more time on bringing in more clients (and more of the right clients), you’re going to do more shoots and make more money.
And hey, sometimes you don’t even have to spend the time working on stuff for your business.
5. You can spend that time with your friends and family and reclaim your LIFE.
And that time is always priceless.
How much time will you get back?
Everybody’s business is different, so to really understand the value of outsourcing you need to figure out how much time you’d get back in your life.
Click here to download my outsourcing calculator, which will help you do just that. I guarantee, it’ll surprise you 😉