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 .

0:43

Aw , coming at you from DFW

0:45

Texas . You are listening to the

0:48

Bop . Happy New Year , friends

0:50

. It is right around the corner . We are about

0:52

to turn the page on 2023

0:54

, heading into 2024 . My

0:56

name is Rob , so glad to have you with us for

0:58

this third part of a three-part

1:01

mini-series of episodes , all

1:03

about lessons from a day job

1:05

, things that I learned in

1:07

years and years and years of sitting

1:10

at a desk and working

1:12

in jobs that were not my current job

1:14

, hoping to one day be able to do the job

1:16

that I do now for a living running

1:19

my own business . Because y'all , it

1:21

can be hard . And you have this

1:23

dream , this massive dream

1:25

to run your own business , create

1:27

your own life , your own schedule

1:29

, your own rhythms . It's just

1:31

sitting out there on the horizon as this thing

1:34

you're reaching for and

1:36

you want it so bad

1:38

. And yet you feel so stuck in

1:40

the realities of the current

1:42

position you're in that current job , the

1:44

stability of the bills that get paid

1:47

because of that job . Y'all it

1:49

can be hard . I get it . I've been there . I

1:52

created this series of three

1:54

lessons from a day job to be able to help

1:56

those of you that want 2024

1:58

to be the year that you're able to go

2:00

full-time with your business . To

2:03

be able to do that To show some of the lessons that I learned

2:05

that as I put these into practice

2:08

really made a massive difference

2:10

for me in being able to grow

2:12

a business that has been successful

2:14

now for eight straight years , that has

2:16

brought in six-figure revenue for eight straight

2:19

years . I want that for you too

2:21

, and so , if you haven't caught

2:23

up on the previous two parts

2:25

of this three-part series , if you're just jumping

2:27

in for the first time today , I want to encourage

2:30

you to go back and check out parts one and part two

2:32

. In part one , we covered planning

2:34

your calendar and the ways that I organize

2:36

my calendar each December , early

2:39

January , to be able to prep for the year

2:41

ahead . Then , in part two

2:43

, we talk about planning your marketing , because once you

2:45

have a calendar in place and you have this overarching

2:48

picture of what's going to be going on in your business

2:50

in the year ahead , it's easier to start working

2:52

out in advance and planning the marketing

2:54

for these things that you want to do in your business

2:57

this year . And finally , today

2:59

we are going to be talking about planning

3:02

your budget . Y'all this one is huge

3:04

because you can plan all the great things

3:06

you want to plan . You can market it however you

3:08

want to market it , but at the end of the day , if the dollars

3:10

aren't there to keep the business profitable , you're

3:14

probably not going to be doing this for very long , and

3:16

so , y'all , I want to give you some

3:18

incredible , just frameworks

3:21

and principles that I use when planning out

3:23

my budget each year that

3:25

will help you to be more profitable

3:27

in the year ahead . Now , all of this is based

3:30

off the calendar that I put together . So

3:32

if you haven't checked out those episodes

3:35

, one of the things I talk about in both

3:37

of these first two episodes is the calendar that I

3:39

use . I use both an annual and a quarterly

3:41

calendar that I've created to do all

3:43

of my planning , and I'm giving you guys 90%

3:46

off my personal

3:48

annual calendar through January

3:51

15th . So if you want to take advantage of that

3:53

, go to square8studiocom

3:55

slash calendar and when you go to check

3:57

out on that annual calendar , put in promo

3:59

code BOP and it'll be good through January

4:01

15th . It'll take 90% off the price

4:04

. I'm trying to bring this thing as close to free

4:06

as we possibly can for you guys so

4:08

that you can be set up for success in the year ahead

4:10

, but all my budget planning is based

4:12

off and built around the calendar

4:14

that I've already planned out at this point

4:16

. Now , like I said , these

4:18

series of episodes are called lessons

4:20

from a day job , and so I want to kick off today's

4:23

episode with the lesson that I learned about

4:25

budgeting from my day job , and

4:27

this is the lesson that I learned artist

4:30

budget by the gig , ceos

4:33

budget by the year . Here's how

4:35

I learned this lesson when I first got

4:37

to Fort Worth , texas , the

4:40

job that I had was working at a church

4:42

and , as I mentioned in the last episode

4:45

, I asked my boss if I could

4:47

spend my opening weeks at this job simply

4:49

working on a plan for the

4:51

future , which meant that I was getting into all

4:53

the ins and outs of budgeting what kinds

4:56

of resources were allocated to which

4:58

parts of the budget and what I found was we

5:00

had a budget for this youth ministry

5:03

that was maybe 30 students at

5:05

the time . That was

5:07

as large as the

5:10

budget that I had for

5:12

a youth ministry of 800 to a thousand

5:14

students back in Atlanta , and

5:18

so I started looking through the numbers and going where

5:21

is all this money going ? And what I found was it

5:23

was going to this one big

5:25

event that was happening at the start of the year

5:27

that everybody loved so

5:29

much and were so excited about . The only problem

5:32

was , over the years , it had drifted

5:34

to becoming something that a bunch of

5:36

other churches brought all their students

5:38

to but weren't putting in

5:40

any money towards . We were putting in all the money

5:42

, they were bringing their students to

5:44

benefit from it , and it wasn't doing anything to help

5:47

our our students grow

5:49

and reach their friends . So

5:51

ultimately , what I realized was we

5:53

had the resources to put out

5:56

an entire year's worth of programming

5:58

for our students If we would

6:00

just start to be more strategic

6:02

about how we spent our dollars on this one

6:05

big event at the start of the year . But

6:07

what does this have to do with running your

6:10

photography business ? Fantastic

6:12

question , fair question . When I

6:14

started looking at taking my photography

6:16

business full time , I went around and asked

6:19

all of my photography friends questions

6:21

about how they run their business . Maybe you have photography

6:24

friends in your world You've been doing something similar

6:26

with . I was looking for themes

6:28

in the things that successful

6:31

people were doing and themes that the unsuccessful

6:33

people were struggling with . As

6:36

I did this , what I realized was all

6:39

of my friends that were really stressed

6:41

out and not enjoying themselves as photographers

6:43

had two problems . Number one

6:45

they were buried under the weight of all

6:47

of their editing piles . They had gotten behind

6:50

on their editing . So I made a real quick commitment

6:52

I'm not ever going to get behind on editing . But

6:55

more to the point of today's conversation

6:57

, all of my friends that were struggling

6:59

financially with their business were

7:01

all living from gig to gig . They were living from

7:03

booking to booking . They would say things

7:05

like if I can just book one more

7:07

wedding , I can get that lens . If

7:10

I can just book one more

7:12

family session , then I can

7:14

get a new iPhone . Everything

7:16

was based around if

7:18

I can just get one more of these things , then I can

7:21

buy one more of these things . All

7:24

right . But then on the other side of the equation , I

7:26

was thinking about what I was learning at my day

7:28

job . And at my day job , every

7:31

year we had to submit a budget

7:33

for approval . This budget had

7:35

to reflect all of the income that we planned

7:37

to bring in from events , from t-shirt

7:40

sales , from anything else we had going on that

7:42

would generate revenue , but it also

7:44

had to reflect all the expenses that we would have

7:46

along the way . If we were planning to put on

7:48

an event , we had to go and pre-calculate and

7:50

pre-determine months in advance

7:52

what we were going to spend that money on

7:54

. And what I found was by

7:57

taking time each summer

7:59

to develop this budget , to

8:01

submit to someone else for approval

8:03

, to check and put eyeballs on and

8:05

go yes , this looks good , this looks realistic

8:07

. It allowed us to make

8:09

a plan for a year and then work that

8:12

plan all year long , knowing

8:14

that as long as we hit our marks on

8:16

income and expenses each time , we

8:19

were going to be just fine budget-wise . And

8:21

then what that also allowed us the freedom to

8:23

do was , if we brought in more

8:25

income or were able to be better

8:28

stewards of our expenses than we had planned

8:30

, we could go back to the people over

8:32

us and say , hey , we have some additional

8:34

revenue . We have this dream that

8:36

we would like to go after of

8:38

a certain event or a certain

8:40

gift for students , whatever

8:42

it might be . We had the freedom to go and

8:45

do those things because

8:47

we beat our budget projections

8:49

, and that meant for me , as

8:51

I was starting to plan my business

8:53

, I said , gosh , I don't want to be like all

8:55

my friends that are struggling , trying

8:58

to make a booking so they can buy a phone . I

9:00

want to be more like this business that I've

9:03

been working for that takes

9:05

time each year to sit down

9:07

and plan for their income , to

9:09

plan for their expenses , so that

9:11

every month , throughout that year , every

9:13

day throughout that year that follows , they're

9:15

actually working off a plan and

9:18

they're working with intentionality and

9:20

being good stewards of the resources

9:22

at their disposal . Because when you're

9:24

a good steward of your resources , your

9:27

resources can go a lot farther . I

9:30

must say that again , when you're

9:32

a good steward of your resources

9:35

, your resources can go a lot

9:37

farther , and that's why this budgeting

9:39

exercise that I'm about to walk you through , that I do

9:41

each December , can be really influential

9:43

for your business in the year ahead . So , again

9:46

, our underlying theme here , our bop

9:48

bite for the day , is that artists

9:50

budget by the gig , but CEOs

9:52

budget by the year , and that's what we're going to

9:54

do is walk through how I budget each

9:57

year . This is an exercise

9:59

that I have just gone through myself

10:01

and have worked out for the year ahead

10:03

and I'm really excited about because

10:06

we've got some really exciting initiatives on

10:08

the agenda for 2024 . And I

10:10

wanted to know that I had the resources to

10:12

be able to fund those initiatives

10:15

. Let's start with income , because

10:17

, let's be honest , it's way more fun to make

10:19

money than to spend money . We don't like seeing

10:21

the money flying out the window . We like seeing it come

10:23

in the door so that we have it for the things that we need

10:25

to be able to spend money on . Here's the question

10:27

I want to pose to you when it comes to your income Is

10:30

$1,000 a month a

10:32

good month or a bad month ? Some

10:35

of you right now are going that would be a phenomenal

10:38

month If I could bring in $1,000 every

10:40

month . That would be mind blowing

10:42

progress for my business . Some

10:45

of you , though , are hearing $1,000 a month and

10:47

thinking that would be terrible . I

10:49

would flounder . My business would be struggling

10:51

if I had only $1,000 come

10:53

in one month . Here's

10:55

my answer to the question it

10:57

depends how much did

11:00

you budget to make that month . If

11:02

you only budgeted to make $200

11:04

and you made $1,000 , then that's a really

11:06

great month , but if you budgeted

11:08

to make $10,000 and you only

11:10

make $1,000 , that's a really

11:13

bad month . Everything

11:15

you generate is good or bad based

11:17

on what you were anticipating bringing in

11:19

in that month . And

11:21

, to make matters worse , not

11:23

all months are created equal . Yet

11:26

a lot of us , when we think about

11:28

revenue , we think , oh man , I just made

11:30

$10,000 last month , I'm

11:32

going to make $10,000 this month . And

11:34

that's not always the case , because there's an ebb and

11:36

a flow and a rhythm to

11:39

where that money comes in throughout the year . And

11:41

one of the things that I love about creating a budget

11:43

is you can then track your progress year

11:45

over year and see where those

11:47

ebbs and flows happen , to see where your slow

11:49

seasons are revenue wise , to see where

11:52

your busy seasons are revenue wise and

11:54

, little hint , they're not always the same

11:56

as where you're busy and slow . Shooting seasons

11:58

are Sometimes , for me , my busiest

12:00

seasons for revenue are my slowest

12:02

seasons for shooting . It's all a matter of

12:05

how you run your business , but you

12:07

can't know what to expect

12:09

if you don't have a plan in place . And

12:11

this is what I love about

12:13

this process is it allows me to have a plan

12:15

and know what to expect from month to

12:17

month . Here's how I do it . The

12:20

first thing that I do in my business is I set up

12:22

the categories of revenue that

12:24

I expect to generate throughout the year . For

12:27

me , those things look like college

12:29

grads , weddings , sororities

12:32

and corporate events , headshots

12:34

, prints and education

12:36

With each of these . I ask myself

12:39

this question and this is what I'd like you to ask yourself

12:41

as well , as you're planning this Realistically

12:44

, not pessimistically , because we tend to get

12:46

really down on ourselves and we think about what's possible

12:48

. But I want you to be realistic , not crazy

12:50

. Optimistic , not negative

12:53

, nancy , just realistic . Realistically

12:55

, based on the time that I plan

12:57

to spend working on my business each month . What

13:00

is the minimum number of each of

13:02

these things that I see myself booking

13:04

in January , february , march

13:06

, april ? Go month by month and

13:09

guess realistically at

13:11

what you think is the minimum number

13:13

of bookings you could have for each of your categories

13:15

in that month . Now here's where

13:18

it gets fun is , if you've already

13:20

followed steps one and two of my planning

13:22

guide , then you already have a calendar

13:24

set up that you can use as a guide

13:26

. You want to pay attention to your busy seasons

13:29

, you want to pay attention to your slow seasons and

13:31

then you want to estimate accordingly . If

13:33

you know January is not a month

13:35

where you get a lot of revenue coming in , then

13:37

don't budget for a lot of revenue coming in

13:39

in January . Likewise

13:42

, if you're like man , march and April

13:44

, those are my big revenue months . Plan

13:46

for bigger revenue in those months , plan for more

13:48

bookings in those months . And this is

13:51

where understanding how your business

13:53

works will have a big impact on where

13:55

you budget this money . For me

13:57

, any booking under $3,000

14:00

is all due up front at the time

14:02

of booking . Anything $3,000

14:04

and over gets split up

14:06

. Where 50% is due at the time of booking

14:09

, the other 50% is due 60

14:11

days out . This allows sororities

14:13

, corporate events , weddings all

14:15

to be able to spread out their expenses

14:17

. It also allows me to go ahead and

14:19

generate future revenue right

14:22

out of the gate . When they book , I

14:24

can already go ahead and plan . Not only am

14:26

I bringing in 50% of that revenue right

14:28

now in this month , I'm also going to have

14:30

another 50% coming in at a later

14:32

date , 60 days out from the event . But

14:34

what that means for me is let's take college

14:36

and sorority , for example . Most

14:39

of our sessions happen between March and

14:41

May for our spring grads , but

14:43

most of those sessions get booked between

14:45

November and January . So

14:47

while many of my photography friends

14:49

have their businesses slowing down , mine

14:52

is ramping up in terms of revenue , where

14:54

November through January can be some of my biggest

14:56

months of the year , because

14:58

that's when people are booking the sessions that are

15:00

being shot March through May . So

15:03

figure out what your rhythms are

15:05

in your business , where you expect your bookings

15:07

to come in , and slot those expectations

15:10

in by the month January through

15:12

December for the year ahead . Now

15:14

let's talk about expenses , and I

15:16

know this part isn't always as fun because

15:18

this is where the money's going out . But I'm telling

15:21

you guys , when you have a plan , it's

15:23

not as scary , it's not as dreadful

15:25

, it can actually , dare I say , even

15:27

be kind of fun . So , with my expenses

15:30

, the first thing I do , just like my income

15:32

, is I set up my categories For me

15:35

in my business . What I do is

15:37

I categorize my expenses by

15:39

people . These are things like second shooters , fees

15:42

paid to campus reps for their referrals

15:44

. They bring in associate photographers

15:46

. Then I have a category for gear

15:48

purchases , for marketing , for

15:51

online services , anything like a gallery

15:53

hosting platform or a CRM . I

15:55

have a category of expenses for travel , for

15:58

my own education , admin

16:00

and taxes , and then I keep a miscellaneous

16:02

category that I just put a little money in and

16:04

plan for extra expenses

16:06

in this miscellaneous category every

16:08

single month , just like with your income

16:10

. You're going to ask the question based on

16:13

my plans for this year , what

16:15

are my known expenses ? This is where you can tap into

16:17

your marketing plans and your calendar

16:20

and start looking at okay , if I've got these

16:22

events going on and these things that I need to

16:24

market for these things that I want to run Facebook

16:26

ads for , these things that I want to create

16:28

flyers for , these lenses

16:31

that I need to buy in the year ahead , this

16:33

apparel that I want to get to ramp up my branding

16:35

game when I'm out shooting , whatever

16:38

it may be , this is where you want to ask yourself

16:40

what are your known expenses

16:42

? Start with the monthly stuff , the

16:44

expenses that you know , like a CRM

16:47

or a gallery service are going to be

16:49

there every single month . They're not going

16:51

away . Put those in first . Then

16:54

start with your annual expenses , and

16:56

one of the things I want to encourage you to look at

16:58

for your business is moving some of

17:00

your monthly expenses to become annual

17:03

expenses . That can be scary at first

17:05

, because you're thinking , oh , but then I have to pay hundreds of

17:07

dollars all at one time for my gallery service

17:09

. Yes , but by

17:11

paying monthly right now , most

17:14

of these services charge you extra

17:16

dollars for the freedom and flexibility

17:18

of using their service monthly

17:20

. If you will pay for it in advance , you often

17:23

get one or two months of their service for

17:25

free . So if you know these expenses

17:27

are coming every month , go ahead and

17:29

make the expense an annual expense and

17:32

save sometimes as much as 20%

17:34

on your annual expenses across

17:36

your budget simply by paying one time

17:39

a year instead of 12 times a year . Lastly

17:42

, put in the one time expenses things

17:44

like gear purchases that you're hoping to be able to

17:46

make in the year ahead . Go ahead and pick a month where

17:48

you're planning to buy it . That way , you

17:50

can look at it across your projected

17:53

income and your projected expenses and

17:55

see do the numbers add up to make

17:57

that purchase during this month ? Which

18:00

brings me to the last part of the process , which

18:02

is balancing the budget . This is the fun

18:04

part . You get to check your income

18:06

and your expenses and you get to ask

18:08

yourself do the numbers add up to a positive

18:10

number or a negative number ? If

18:13

they're a positive number every month , great

18:15

, you're good to go . If they're a negative

18:17

number , you have two options . Number

18:19

one you can plan for increased revenue

18:22

, which is typically more bookings

18:24

or higher price bookings , or

18:26

you can plan for decreased expenses . When

18:29

I'm decreasing my expenses , I start

18:31

with my one time expenses , like gear purchases . Why ? Because they're

18:33

often larger and easier to postpone

18:36

than a monthly service fee , not

18:38

to mention easier to add back

18:41

in if your revenue comes in higher

18:43

than expected . A monthly thing is typically something that

18:46

you're locked into and need for your business

18:49

over and over and over again , so it's harder to reduce

18:51

those expenses . And the great part is

18:53

y'all this is no longer guesswork . These are real calculations

18:57

you can make with your bottom line

18:59

in mind . If you see there's not money for a lens purchase

19:02

in June , but the projected revenue

19:04

for July and August is going to be higher , then push that

19:08

expense back to August so that there's

19:10

always money in the bank to be able

19:12

to keep your business going

19:14

. Now you might be wondering how do I

19:16

keep track of this throughout the year and make sure I'm staying

19:20

on track Like it sounds fun to do once in December

19:22

. But how do I keep this going ? Well , uno , if

19:26

you remember , I referenced in part one

19:28

of this that I start by planning my rhythms of

19:30

rest in my business , my out of

19:32

office days , and when

19:35

I plan those rhythms , one of the things that

19:37

I plan for is I pick a day on

19:39

my calendar to track my progress

19:41

each month with my budget projected versus

19:43

actual , and then I update my projections

19:46

accordingly as I go . So if I

19:48

wind up with a month where I was planning to book three

19:50

weddings and only one came in , then I

19:52

will go through and see do I need to make

19:54

any changes to my

19:57

future projections and expenses

19:59

based on this . If there's plenty of money in

20:01

the bank , despite my wedding projections

20:03

coming in lower than expected , I don't make

20:05

any adjustments . But if I see

20:07

that missing the mark by two weddings

20:09

in June causes me to start going

20:12

under on the in , going

20:14

into the negative in July and August , that's

20:17

where I want to start shifting my budget

20:19

projections around to make sure

20:21

I'm staying in the positive . This can

20:23

be a huge stress

20:25

reliever , anxiety reliever , because

20:28

you now have a mechanism in place . You don't have

20:30

to wonder am I gonna make it next month ? You

20:32

can literally go into numbers that you have projected

20:34

and tweak things and alter things

20:36

to plan for your success , to

20:39

plan to stay afloat when things don't go

20:41

as you planned in one particular month , and y'all

20:43

. This is why I say

20:45

you always guess low on the income

20:47

and high on the expenses . That

20:50

way , every time you're wrong , every time there's

20:52

an error , it's always in your favor

20:54

. If you start with the lowest possible income

20:56

and you're wrong , then you're wrong because you brought

20:58

in more revenue . If you guess the

21:00

highest possible expenses and you're wrong

21:03

, then any reduction

21:05

in expenses means more money

21:07

sitting in the bank for you . This is how

21:09

I plan my budget . I plan it every

21:12

year , I track it every month

21:14

, I adjust accordingly . I guess

21:16

low on the income , I guess high on the expenses

21:18

and y'all . It's allowed me the freedom

21:20

to dream , to grow my business

21:23

, to see six-figure

21:25

revenue from the very start . From year

21:27

one in my business , I've been able to

21:29

go after the goals that I put on

21:31

my calendar . I've been able to market

21:33

them with excellence because I planned

21:35

ahead and there were budget resources

21:37

that were always available to fund

21:39

those dreams and fund those goals because

21:43

of the planning that I did in

21:45

advance . That's it for today's episode

21:47

. Y'all . I hope this has been an encouragement

21:49

to you as you're sitting at your day job

21:51

. I hope this gives you the freedom to dream

21:53

a little bit , the freedom to have an actionable

21:56

plan for the year ahead . Cannot

21:58

wait to see what you do with

22:00

this . If you put it into practice , drop

22:02

me an email . Admin at Square 8 Studio

22:05

. Let me know how it's going for you and

22:07

would love to hear or shoot me a DM on Instagram

22:10

at Square 8 Studio . Would love to hear

22:12

how this is working for you in your business

22:14

. We'll be back next month with

22:16

our regular interview format . Cannot

22:19

wait to share with you all the

22:21

things we have in store for 2024

22:23

. Until next time , friends , keep learning

22:25

, keep loving and keep chasing those

22:27

dreams you were made for . You

22:51

know what no photographer ever asks

22:53

how can I make less money ? As

22:56

small business owners , we're always looking

22:58

to make just a little bit more , and

23:00

most of us just need someone to show us

23:02

how . What if I told

23:04

you college and sorority photography could give

23:06

you not one , not two , but 17

23:09

different ways to make more money

23:11

in the months ahead . To download

23:13

my free guide , visit square8studiocom

23:16

. Slash 17ways today

23:18

.