Do you want to work smarter and faster?  Because let’s face it, your time is the most valuable thing you own.  In all honesty, your time is priceless and can be what makes or breaks your business.  Below you are going to find some of my best tips for automating your business and yielding you more time for the things that deserve your time and will give your clients the BEST experience possible!

1.) Create Template Emails
For any email responses that you know you’re going to be creating on a regular basis, create template emails. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to take away from the personal aspect of the email or that personal touch that you want to have with your clients. Create the template for the scenarios that you are responding to the most. For example, wedding inquiries, portrait inquires, etc.  Make them awesome and then add a personal touch to each one bY personalizing it for each client.  When you do this, you increase your response time which makes for a greater experience for your clients and also saves you a ton of time!  

2.) Set Up a Google Docs Account
Get all of your important documents OFF of your computer!!!  Not only is this a good idea for storage reasons but it’s great when needing to share documents with anyone with which you’re working.  I never worry about a hard drive crashing and losing my documents and I LOVE that I can share my docs back and forth with my assistant.  It saves a TON OF TIME when there’s a need for a particular document.  I don’t have to email back and forth.  It’s there and it’s safe!  This is a great tool with wedding planners. I love it when the timelines are in good doc form.  Because when changes are made, I can see that in real time.  It’s pretty awesome and a huge time saver for everyone!

3.) Automate Your Social Media
Social media is HUGE for any business but it can get REALLY time consuming posting all of the time.  So, I recommend scheduling your Facebook and Instagram posts. I personally use a website called Later to batch schedule my posts.  I absolutely love this program because it allows me to schedule all of my social media posts a week in advance, a month in advance, however far in advance that I want. What makes that so wonderful is that I’m not having to fall into the time suck of social media each day. I upload the content that I have and I’m done.  On to the next task!

4.) Have Workflows Inside of Your Client Booking System
I definitely recommend having some type of workflows inside of your booking system. For each type of client, you know what emails and information need to be sent out on a regular basis.  Create those templates inside of your booking system and set up a workflow so those emails get sent out on a particular schedule.  This is great because it saves you time AND it gives your clients an AWESOME experience.  You never forget an email because it’s scheduled from the beginning.  I personally use ShootFlow.  It’s amazing and keeps me on track! 

Start implementing these in your business today and you’ll be well on your way to more time in your work day and a much better experience for your clients!

Your Biggest Cheerleader,

xoxo
Candice

P.S.  Want to hang out outside of these blog posts? Follow along HERE on Instagram where I share my latest work, fun behind the scenes in my stories, and more helpful tips and tricks for wedding professionals!