0:11

You're listening to the Bop the business

0:13

of photography podcast with Rob Green

0:15

, a photographer to contagiously positive

0:18

clients and fierce believer in building

0:20

people-focused businesses that leave a lasting

0:22

impact . If you're an entrepreneur

0:25

with dreams in your head , ideas

0:27

in your heart and passions burning deep down

0:29

in your soul , this is the perfect place

0:31

to be , because this is where dreams come to

0:33

thrive . So are you ready

0:35

to build your business , wow your clients

0:38

and make photo magic ? Here's

0:40

your host , rob Green .

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Aw , coming at you from DFW

0:46

, texas . You are listening to the Bop

0:48

. Hope everyone had an amazing

0:50

Christmas . I am currently

0:53

wrapping up some time with family

0:55

down in Cocoa Beach , florida

0:57

, and I am just always amazed

0:59

at how much warmer it is down here than

1:02

most places I have been and spent

1:05

Christmas , but I guess that's why

1:07

my parents and the rest of the world likes

1:09

to retire and move to Florida . Like

1:11

I said , hope you guys had an amazing Christmas celebrating

1:15

with friends and family . Today

1:17

, as we are now marching

1:19

really fast towards the

1:22

start of 2024 , I

1:24

wanted to jump back in with part

1:26

two of Lessons from a Day

1:28

Job . If you haven't listened to part one , we released

1:30

it a few days ago , back before Christmas , and

1:32

now we're coming back with part two . This is basically

1:35

taking my usual Bop episode

1:37

that runs more like 45 minutes to

1:39

an hour , 10 hour 15 , and

1:42

breaking it down into three smaller

1:44

, little bite-sized nuggets , a little more like our Bop

1:46

bites that we do to give you

1:48

guys something a little more bite-sized

1:51

and actionable that you can work off

1:53

of as you're working through . What I know for many

1:55

photographers is a slower season in

1:58

our businesses and people are going

2:00

what do I do Like things are slowing down

2:02

. Nobody's booking sessions right now . How

2:04

do I survive this time ? And

2:07

so what happened for me was I started thinking

2:09

back through when I

2:11

was in the early phases of

2:13

my business , before I even

2:15

had a full-time job doing

2:17

photography , certainly long before

2:20

I had gotten into education , but

2:22

when I was working a nine to five . What

2:24

did it feel like for me this time of

2:26

year and what was going through my mind , and what

2:28

were some of the lessons that I learned in

2:30

this season of work where

2:32

I was working a nine to five but had the dream

2:35

of doing something else full-time

2:37

. How did I put that season

2:40

to use ? Because what I have found

2:42

in retrospect is that there are tons

2:44

of lessons that each of us can take

2:46

away from our current circumstances that

2:49

are going to come in so handy

2:51

when you are running your business full-time

2:53

down the road . And so these are just a few of the lessons

2:55

that I have taken away from my

2:58

nine to five job , my day job that

3:00

I believe are universally transferable

3:02

across everyone's business , and

3:05

so I wanted to share them with you during

3:07

this season so that you could start putting

3:09

them into action for your business as

3:11

well . So in the first part of this

3:13

series , we talked about planning out your calendar

3:16

. You can go back and check that out . One

3:18

of the big reasons I'm a big proponent of

3:20

planning out your calendar every December

3:22

is because planning

3:24

out your calendar allows you to do what we're

3:27

going to talk about in a day's episode , which

3:29

is to plan your marketing

3:31

. And so the big idea of

3:33

today's episode , the bop bite for today's

3:35

episode , is that you can do more

3:37

than you think , and you can do it

3:39

more easily than you think . You

3:42

just have to do it earlier

3:44

than you think . I'll say that again

3:46

you can do more than you think and

3:49

you can do it more easily than you think . You

3:51

just have to start earlier than you think . See

3:55

a lot of times . Maybe you don't

3:57

do this . I know for me , when I was getting started

3:59

, I would look at these people running these wildly

4:01

successful businesses and

4:03

going . It seems like they

4:05

have unlimited time . I'm looking at my

4:07

life and I don't feel like I have unlimited

4:10

time like they do . They somehow have time to

4:12

do all their social media . They

4:14

make all this money . They're

4:16

still having time to have picnics with their kids

4:19

in the backyard . How , how

4:21

, how do they do it ? I don't

4:23

understand . What I've

4:25

come to realize is that

4:28

everybody has the same 168

4:30

hours in a seven-day week . It's all

4:33

a matter of how you use it . If you will start

4:35

planning your marketing and planning

4:37

the things that you want to do throughout the year further

4:39

in advance , you

4:42

can accomplish so much more and it's going to be so

4:44

much less stressful . I know for me , one

4:46

of the ways I learned this in my day job came

4:49

when I took a job in a youth ministry

4:51

out in Texas . When

4:53

I arrived , it was two weeks before the start

4:56

of the school year and this

4:58

particular church kicked off their

5:00

year with what they had told me during

5:02

the interview process was this massive

5:04

event that the whole community came out

5:06

for , that there would be thousands of

5:08

students showing up . I think the largest number

5:10

somebody told me was between 5,000 and 10,000

5:13

students coming to this thing . I'm

5:16

like , wow , this is a really big deal . You guys are really

5:18

putting a lot into this . When

5:20

I came on staff two weeks before

5:22

this event , my boss came to me and said

5:24

hey , so what would you like your role

5:27

in the event to be ? And

5:32

a moment of rare courage for

5:34

me in that season of life said

5:37

, I think I would like my role to

5:39

just be to watch and observe what's

5:41

going on . Just , you guys

5:44

have already done all the planning for this . I

5:46

just want to watch and observe . And in the

5:48

meantime , what I would like to focus

5:51

the majority of my time on is I

5:53

would like to start mapping out a plan

5:55

for the upcoming year . I had already

5:57

had a number of conversations with my boss leading

5:59

up to my start date . I knew the direction

6:01

they were looking to go with things and I knew how

6:04

. From the calendaring work that

6:06

I had done with my previous job , I

6:09

knew how to make a

6:11

schedule come together really easy . Because

6:13

here's part one of the story . So

6:15

at my Atlanta job the one I told

6:17

you about last episode one

6:20

year , one of our interns came in

6:22

. His name was Eugene . He came in and he said guys

6:25

, I got it and he whips out on

6:27

Atlanta Braves baseball calendar

6:29

. Now , if you haven't seen these , they fold

6:31

up , they fit in your pocket . All the home

6:33

games are colored one way , all the road

6:35

games are colored another way . It's an easy way

6:37

for any baseball fan to have

6:40

a really clear picture of the whole season

6:42

right out of the gate and it fits in

6:44

your pocket . It folds up like and fits in

6:46

your wallet , even just like a credit card . And

6:50

, based off our interns idea , what we

6:52

did was we created a calendar

6:54

for the entire student

6:56

ministry year . It

6:59

started in August of every year , it

7:01

ran through May of every year and we put all

7:03

of our events on this calendar that

7:05

we passed out to families right out of the gate . So

7:07

what did I do ? I started building

7:09

a calendar of events . I started

7:12

thinking about okay , we know we meet

7:14

on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings , let's start

7:16

there with the big blocks . And then what

7:18

are some of the special events , seasonal things

7:20

that we might do around Christmas time or Valentine's

7:23

Day or Easter ? When

7:26

are students going to be gone for things like spring

7:28

break or Christmas break ? I

7:31

put all of this , I took two weeks and

7:33

put all of this into a calendar

7:35

and then I started mapping out

7:37

. Once I had this calendar , I started mapping out teaching

7:40

ideas . What are some of the topics we could teach on

7:42

that would be appropriate for that time of

7:44

year to teach on . From

7:47

there I took another step and I

7:49

said , okay , if we're gonna do an event like

7:51

we had an event we called it Muckfest . It

7:53

was a big food fight . We had a

7:55

blast with it . Another year we did a thing called

7:57

Color Wars full of colored powder and

8:00

kids just had a good time getting really

8:02

messy and having a blast with their friends

8:04

. So I put all of this on a calendar

8:06

and then I started asking the question if

8:08

I already know when all these things are gonna take place , when

8:11

would we need to start marketing these things ? So

8:14

I spent two solid weeks at

8:16

the end of August one year my

8:18

first two weeks on staff creating

8:21

this calendar . So for the rest of my team

8:23

, by the time they got finished putting on this major

8:25

event , I had already

8:28

put together the entire plan

8:30

of action for the upcoming school

8:32

year , which meant all they had to do

8:34

then was look over it and give me

8:36

feedback and let me know which parts they thought would

8:38

work great for their context and which

8:41

parts they thought we ought to continue tweaking and revising

8:43

. But we had a whole plan in place

8:45

so that when we called a parent meeting

8:47

a few weeks later , we were able

8:49

to roll out for them an action plan

8:52

for the entire year . And y'all

8:54

families loved it because they

8:56

knew how to plan , as a family

8:58

, around the events that

9:00

we had going on , that their kids wanted to be a

9:02

part of , which made it easier for

9:04

them to say yes to being apart

9:06

. And wouldn't you know

9:08

it , by the end of the year , attendance

9:11

had skyrocketed . I think we had gone up to

9:13

four or five times the attendance just in

9:15

the first year . Because families

9:17

knew how to plan around the things

9:19

we had going on . Why ? Because we communicated

9:22

them in advance . That is the

9:24

power of planning your marketing

9:26

. You can do more than you think . Whatever

9:29

you think your current capacity is for doing

9:32

things in your business , it's way greater

9:34

than you realize , and you can do it easier

9:36

than you think . All the stresses that you're

9:38

facing right now guess what ? A

9:40

lot of that stress comes from working

9:42

at the 11th hour on everything you

9:44

do . But if you start planning it out

9:46

in advance , it's so much easier

9:49

. So the only thing you have to know

9:51

is that you just have to start planning it earlier

9:53

than you think . How do you do that ? Well

9:56

, let's think back to last week . I was telling

9:58

you , when I plan out my annual calendar

10:00

, what I do is I set a big win for

10:02

each month and three to four sub

10:04

goals under each month with that

10:07

big win . Once you've established those

10:09

big wins and set

10:11

those three to four goals under

10:13

each win , ask yourself this question

10:15

in a perfect world where

10:17

I had unlimited time , when

10:20

would be the ideal time for my

10:22

audience to hear about blank , for

10:25

my audience to hear about the wedding

10:27

special that I'm running , for my audience to

10:29

hear that we're doing red truck minis

10:31

or fall family minis or

10:33

spring mommy and me minis for

10:35

Mother's Day , whatever it is that you're putting

10:37

on ? In a perfect world where you had unlimited

10:40

time , when would be the ideal time

10:42

for your audience to hear about it ? Ask

10:45

yourself , how far in advance would you connect

10:47

with them ? Cause gosh y'all . How often

10:50

do we think of this great idea and we're like , oh

10:52

man , I wish I had thought of that sooner . There's no time to

10:54

do that this year . How

10:56

far in advance would you connect with your audience around this

10:58

perfect , ideal event ? How

11:01

often would you want to connect with them and

11:04

through what mediums would you want to connect with them ? Would

11:06

you do this through Facebook ? Would you do this through Instagram

11:08

? Would you do this through TikTok or email

11:11

? What would be your method of communication

11:13

for this . Go ahead and plan out the ideal

11:15

scenario and then , when you're in

11:18

this December January window , where

11:20

things are running a little slower , go

11:22

ahead and create it all . Create

11:25

if you're doing Instagram , create the square

11:27

content for your feed and the vertical

11:30

content for your story . If you're

11:32

doing it on Facebook , create things that

11:34

are going to fit that audience . If you're doing

11:36

it via email , create your email

11:38

drafts and start getting things scheduled

11:41

in your email hosting platform . You

11:44

can do all of this during your

11:46

slower seasons and

11:48

in your first year . Y'all because some of you are going . That

11:50

sounds great , but I've got stuff coming up already that

11:52

I've got to be working on . Here's what I want to encourage

11:54

you to do is do exactly what I did when

11:57

I started at that job . I

11:59

want you to start with your big win months

12:01

from now . So let's just say , since

12:03

we're in December , january , let's just say June

12:05

and July is when you want to focus on start

12:07

there . Give yourself the

12:10

margin to start planning in advance . You

12:12

already know you can do what you're doing right now and kind

12:15

of get by at the last minute on things . So let that keep rolling . It's

12:18

gotten you this far . Let that keep rolling for

12:20

January through May , start with the

12:22

summer and ask yourself in June and July , what do

12:24

I want to do ? And if I had

12:26

unlimited time now to do it , what are the things that I would want

12:28

to create ? You may find this

12:31

sparks all kind of creative ideas for you . You may go

12:33

into a studio or plan out a style

12:35

shoot that illustrates for your sessions

12:37

, your mini sessions , that you're doing , what

12:39

kind of results people can expect from working

12:42

with you . But start in

12:44

June or July with your planning and work out from there why

12:47

? Because these dates are already too close . You're going to be stressed

12:49

, you're going to wind up stuck in the

12:51

same old rat race If you keep doing things

12:54

the same way you've always done them . When

12:57

I walked into that job , I

12:59

could have easily jumped in on the planning

13:01

for this major event . It was a

13:03

huge event . It had a big

13:05

budget behind it , which I'm going to tell you about in

13:07

the third part of this series Some

13:10

crazy findings that we discovered as we

13:12

went through the budget . It would have been

13:14

easy and obvious for me to focus

13:16

all of my energy on that

13:18

event , but instead I

13:20

looked to the future and I said let's

13:22

not get caught in the rat race , let's

13:25

focus on an ideal plan for

13:27

an ideal outcome . And wouldn't you know

13:29

it , I had more time than

13:31

I thought and it was easier than I thought . All

13:34

I had to do was start earlier

13:36

than I thought , and the same

13:38

can be true for you and your business . So

13:41

that's it for today's episode . I hope

13:43

this has been encouraging for you . I hope this gives you

13:45

some easy , actionable next steps . If

13:47

you're looking to use the calendar

13:49

system that I use for all of my planning

13:52

, I've got it available on my website

13:54

, square8studiocom slash

13:56

calendar , and all you have to do when

13:58

you go to checkout is use promo code BOP

14:00

and I'll give you 90% off the price

14:03

. Normally , I charge 10 bucks for

14:05

this thing . I'll give it to you for 99 cents at

14:07

square8studiocom slash calendar

14:09

using promo code BOP . That's good

14:11

through January 15th . Take me up on it

14:13

and set yourself up for success

14:15

in the year ahead . We'll be back in

14:17

a few days with the final installment

14:19

of this three part series on lessons from

14:21

a day job . I cannot wait to share

14:24

with you how I plan my budget . Until

14:26

next time , friends , keep learning , keep loving

14:29

and keep chasing those dreams you were

14:31

made for . You

14:54

know what no photographer ever asks

14:56

how can I make less money ? As

14:59

small business owners , we're always looking

15:01

to make just a little bit more , and

15:03

most of us just need someone to show us how

15:05

. What if I told you

15:07

college and sorority photography could give you

15:09

not one , not two , but 17

15:12

different ways to make more money

15:14

in the months ahead . To download

15:16

my free guide , visit square8studiocom

15:19

. Slash 17ways today .