# Calendar for clients to veiw availabilty and/or poss schedule own appointments??



## Rebekah5280 (May 22, 2013)

So my little hobby photography business had grown like wildfire and has become my full-time job.  Being a single mom and a small business owner of a super busy high-contact photography business is getting really tough.  I can't find the time to return phone calls and I am in sessions nearly everyday so I don't answer any calls during that time.  
I've hired an assistant in the past to handle my phone calls and scheduling from last Oct to Dec (the super busy fall and Christmas picture months), but come to find out, she wasn't doing a very good job at returning people's calls either.  :/  So now I'm reluctant to hire anyone and my business advisor suggested holding off on that while we review my growing business with a fine-toothed comb to make sure I have everything running as it should be to avoid any sort of fines in the future (business licenses, LLC, accounting, insurance etc..).

So, basically, I want to know if any of you have seen or used a calendar that I can link when people are wanting to schedule an appointment so that they can see my availability without having to talk to me, then talk to the other people that are going to be in the session to make sure it works for everyone, then to call me back to let me know that it DOES work for everyone, but then I have to tell them that it will no longer work for me because someone else has booked it since we last spoke...  blah blah blah...  lol 

What would be even BETTER, is if there were a way that I could empower my clients to make their OWN appointments, given my parameters, and the ability to make their deposit for the appointment they are scheduling all at the same time.

Is there anything like that????  I want something reliable so I don't mind investing $$$$  (Miller's Camera has something similar for free, but I'm not sure if that would be best or if some else has something better?)

Thanks everyone!
~Rebekah


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## CCericola (May 23, 2013)

Millers lab offers a free scheduling app that will do just that. But no matter what you have people will still call.


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## kathyt (May 23, 2013)

Heck no, I would not have clients schedule their own appointments. This is a HUGE opportunity for you to be educating your clients about their session, discussing products, and getting an overall feel for what it is that they want. You need to get to know your clients as well. This is going to be the clients first impression of you. If you do not have time for this aspect of your business then you are not going to survive very long before you go into complete burn out mode. I would take a step back and re-evaluate my business plan if I were you and start with the basics. You can be a great photographer, but without the service aspect you will spin in circles.


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## manaheim (May 23, 2013)

kathythorson said:


> Heck no, I would not have clients schedule their own appointments. This is a HUGE opportunity for you to be educating your clients about their session, discussing products, and getting an overall feel for what it is that they want. You need to get to know your clients as well. This is going to be the clients first impression of you. If you do not have time for this aspect of your business then you are not going to survive very long before you go into complete burn out mode. I would take a step back and re-evaluate my business plan if I were you and start with the basics. You can be a great photographer, but without the service aspect you will spin in circles.



Yeah I tend to agree. Personally if I called someone and they're directed me to a self scheduling app, I would think the vendor either didn't have time for me or didn't care, and I would call someone else.


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## Light Guru (May 23, 2013)

kathythorson said:


> Heck no, I would not have clients schedule their own appointments. This is a HUGE opportunity for you to be educating your clients about their session, discussing products, and getting an overall feel for what it is that they want. You need to get to know your clients as well. This is going to be the clients first impression of you. If you do not have time for this aspect of your business then you are not going to survive very long before you go into complete burn out mode. I would take a step back and re-evaluate my business plan if I were you and start with the basics. You can be a great photographer, but without the service aspect you will spin in circles.



Yup its a bad idea.  Do you want customers to view having you photography them as cheep commodity or as a personalized service. 



Rebekah5280 said:


> I've hired an assistant in the past to handle my phone calls and scheduling from last Oct to Dec (the super busy fall and Christmas picture months), but come to find out, she wasn't doing a very good job at returning people's calls either.  :/  So now I'm reluctant to hire anyone



Sounds like you did not do a good job in the hiring process.  

I would say ether hire an assistant (and put a LOT of effort into hiring them and also compensate them WELL for their work) or raise your prices and book less appointment's.  You could also do both.


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## dbvirago (May 23, 2013)

To answer the calendar question, I have been using Calendarwiz.com in another business. Does a great job and it's somewhere between free and cheap


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## Majeed Badizadegan (May 23, 2013)

Hire an assistant who will actually call people back.


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## rlemert (May 23, 2013)

Having someone live to answer the phone when potential clients call does several things. First, when done right it generates a positive first impression. Part of "making the sale" is making the customer feel you care about them, and having a competent, professional voice answering their questions and providing extra information goes a long way toward doing that. Requiring them to do part of your work for you may seem like a reasonable request, but it's more likely to drive people away. (Consider the self-checkout lanes at the grocery store. I won't use them, and I've left things behind when they've tried to insist that I have to.)

  The other thing having you (or your designated proxy) schedule the appointments is that it keeps control of your calendar in your hands. YOU will be able to determine how much time will be required based on your understanding of the customer's needs and desires. They will usually assume that 30 minutes is always enough (and certainly the cheapest option) because, after all, "all you're doing is taking a bunch of pictures."

  I think your business adviser is right that your first priority is to step back and make sure you have all your ducks lined up. Your next step should then be to analyze why your previous assistant wasn't getting the job done for you like you wanted. Was she unable to meet your standards/needs, or just unwilling to? Was she willing and able, but not given clear guidelines and expectations?

  You might prefer to be "down in the trenches taking the pictures," but your business MUST be managed if it's going to succeed, and since it's your business it's up to you to provide that management. You can hire people to help you with certain aspects, and you can delegate to them the authority to act on certain matters, but in the end you CANNOT delegate the responsibility. If you try, you might as well start working for someone else.


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## Big Mike (May 23, 2013)

I agree with most of the others.  I've listened in on some conversations about photographers using some sort of on-line client calendar and it's usually deemed a bad idea.  If you are truly busy enough to need it, then you should probably hire someone to take care of it for you.  As you have seen, hiring the right person isn't as easy as it sounds...but that's nothing new, and certainly not limited to the photography industry.

You might even consider it a 'sales' position, because this person will be your first line of contact with your clients.  The right person in that job could increase your revenue by more than enough to justify their costs.  

Another tip (applies to all small business owners, not just photography) is to look at not only your business but your life, and see what can be outsourced.  
For example, if you can hire someone to do your yard work, or other household chores...that would free up some time.  The obvious one for a photographer is the post processing.  If you can find someone to do some/most/all of your post processing...that can really free up a lot of time.  

You can use that time to be behind the camera, which is where you make your money...or you can use that time to spend with your family, which can be very precious time...especially when running a small business.


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## amolitor (May 23, 2013)

You might need to schedule more time to take care of your business than you are. That means blocking out time that you cannot use for shooting, and then sticking to it.


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## runnah (May 23, 2013)

amolitor said:


> You might need to schedule more time to take care of your business than you are. That means blocking out time that you cannot use for shooting, and then sticking to it.



Somebody somewhere had a humorous but insightful graph that showed taking pictures to be roughly 10% of time spent.


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## Big Mike (May 23, 2013)

One way to look at it, is how much your time is worth, to the company...as the main (only) photographer.  
Let's say that your shooting time is worth $100/hr.  Well then, it's going to be better off if you can pay someone $25/hr to do the post processing...as long as you can use that time to actually be behind the camera, making more money.  Same thing applies to dealing with calls & customers.  

The problem is that you have to be busy enough, have enough business so that you can be shooting as much as possible.


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## kathyt (May 23, 2013)

Big Mike said:


> One way to look at it, is how much your time is worth, to the company...as the main (only) photographer.
> Let's say that your shooting time is worth $100/hr.  Well then, it's going to be better off if you can pay someone $25/hr to do the post processing...as long as you can use that time to actually be behind the camera, making more money.  Same thing applies to dealing with calls & customers.
> 
> The problem is that you have to be busy enough, have enough business so that you can be shooting as much as possible.


Yeah, you need to be super high volume and high dollar to justify someone taking over the sales/appointments. I think I watched a Scott Kelby seminar regarding this a while back.


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## Rebekah5280 (May 23, 2013)

Right now, idealy, I'd like to only have 7 sessions per week.  This I could manage on my own.  
HOWEVER, I am averaging about 13 per week, with an occasional wedding thrown in there (about 2-3 per month) and I'm still booking out 3 months.  

I'm from a decent sized small town and my photography business is priced in the middle of the crappy and the well-established photographers in my area. 
I have a tough time saying no to anyone, but I'm trying to change that.  I do block time in my schedule to edit/handle business stuff, but I usually will fill that time with a sob story of "but I can only book something on that day because my moms mom and her moms mom and ONLY going to be in town for THAT day and this may be the last time we have great grandmother in town for a picture etc..." so I know that some of this is my fault...  :/

I would always follow up a scheduled appointment with a personal phone call.  I'm just trying to avoid the back and forth of when are you available, when am I available type of thing.  I just want it to be straight forward.  So maybe instead of have a self-scheduling system, just having an availability calendar that I can direct people to if they are trying to schedule an appointment but can't seem to figure out a date that will work.  lol


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## kathyt (May 23, 2013)

Rebekah5280 said:


> Right now, idealy, I'd like to only have 7 sessions per week.  This I could manage on my own.
> HOWEVER, I am averaging about 13 per week, with an occasional wedding thrown in there (about 2-3 per month) and I'm still booking out 3 months.
> 
> I'm from a decent sized small town and my photography business is priced in the middle of the crappy and the well-established photographers in my area.
> ...


If I were taking on this amount of clients, which I never would even full time, I would expect to be making six figures. This is an extreme amount of clients to be able to handle and be given proper care to.  I really hate to be a Debbie downer, I usually am not, but you are heading for a disaster.


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## Rebekah5280 (May 23, 2013)

Yes, I'm making a lot of money right now.  Yes, I have too much on my plate.  Which is why I'm in the process of meeting with business advisers and restructuring my business.  

When I started, I was thinking I would have a few client's per month, but I am crazy busy.  Word has spread and I'm averaging about 2 referrals for every client I see.  I can't keep up any more and I need some relief.  Until I get all my ducks in a row and can hire an assistant, I need to figure something out now.  

I can do 7 per week.  This is easily managed.  
I can do 1 wedding per weekend with 2 regular sessions per week.
I can not keep doing what I'm doing because all I do it edit.  edit edit edit edit edit edit edit.  I stay up until 2 in the morning editing, I wake up early, get the kids to school and then I edit edit edit edit edit...   Its insane.


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## Rebekah5280 (May 23, 2013)

I jacked my wedding prices up for this wedding season to help brush some people off, but it really hasn't worked.  lol  I think I may need to raise my prices even more to help thin out my clients list.  
But, again, this is why I've hired business advisers who will help me re-evaluate my business and see what I need to do to have a manageable business.


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## Big Mike (May 24, 2013)

Firstly, good for you.  You are surely doing a lot of things right, for your business to be taking off so well.  But of course, there are all sorts of growing pains to deal with, and you certainly have to be careful that you don't get burned out.



> I'm from a decent sized small town and my photography business is priced in the middle of the crappy and the well-established photographers in my area.


I see that you mentioned raising your wedding prices...that's good.  But maybe raise all your prices...by a good margin.  Think about it like this...if you double your prices, you could loose half your clients, and still make the same income...and do half as much work.  (but as you are seeing, raising your prices will often get you *more* clients, this is rather common with photographers in your situation).  



> I can not keep doing what I'm doing because all I do it edit. edit edit edit edit edit edit edit. I stay up until 2 in the morning editing, I wake up early, get the kids to school and then I edit edit edit edit edit... Its insane.


Again, this is not uncommon.  I've heard and seen this from many photographers, especially at the point where their business is taking off.  Some let it get too far ahead of them, they get burned out and their workload gets piled up and they end up taking 6 months to finish up a wedding or portrait session.

I've mentioned it already, but you should seriously consider hiring out at least some of your editing.  I know that most photographers (especially small business owners) consider the editing to be just as much a part of their final product and their style...but something has got to give.  So maybe you need to ask yourself, which is most important to your creative process.  It would even be an option for you to hire another photographer, and then concentrate more on editing and sales.  

I know some photographers who (for a while) outsourced their Raw processing & color correction.  Leaving less editing work for them.  
But if you could find someone to do your editing, who has a similar style, or something that works for you...then why not?

Yet another thing to look at, is how efficient is your workflow.  For example, are you good at nailing your lighting and exposure, so that your images don't need those things corrected?  Many 'long-time-pro' photographers have developed a shooting style that specifically reduces editing time.  
Then there is your editing workflow.  There are as many different workflows, as there are photographers...but there are certainly many ways to streamline the process and cut down on your workload.  

You seem to be going about it the right way, bringing in some outside help.  And we are here to help as well.


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## kathyt (May 24, 2013)

Big Mike said:


> Firstly, good for you. You are surely doing a lot of things right, for your business to be taking off so well. But of course, there are all sorts of growing pains to deal with, and you certainly have to be careful that you don't get burned out.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I outsource on occasion during my peak season to Vital Edit, especially if I have back to back weddings. They are great and just do my basic corrections, and then I do the rest.


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## Rebekah5280 (May 24, 2013)

I've never considered outsourcing my editing.  That is definately something that I will look into.  

I've got my lighting and my exposure down to being correct about 80% of the time.  I purchased some more powerful flash units so with them I should be able to get my average a lot better.  
Mainly what I do currently with editing is color corrections, take the background lighting down and soften shadows on my subject, then sharpen and crop.  I'm at about 3-5 minutes per picture.  


With my new flash units I will be able to eliminate the  step of burning out my background by bumping up the light on my subject.  Which is about a 1-2 minute process per picture that I would be cutting out.


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## Big Mike (May 24, 2013)

Yes, if you can get away from having to make edits specifically to subject only or background only, that can really cut down on edit time.  

What software are you using?


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## Rebekah5280 (May 24, 2013)

Photoshop.


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## Light Guru (May 24, 2013)

If you hire right you could hire one person to do phones and to do the basic adjustments on the images.


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## kathyt (May 24, 2013)

Rebekah5280 said:


> Photoshop.


This might be problem #1. Lightroom would be your best friend. My average wedding gallery is about 650 images. If I spent 4 minutes on each image that would be almost 44 hours spent editing one wedding. That is about 7 times longer then it should take. Lightroom has a way to adjust one image and then sync the rest of the images in the same lighting situation. Huge time saver.


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## Big Mike (May 24, 2013)

> Photoshop.


Well now we have an easy time saver for you.   Get Lightroom (and learn how to use it).  I wouldn't be surprised if Lightroom could help you cut your editing time down to 1/2 or even 1/3 of what it is now.


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## Rebekah5280 (May 24, 2013)

I may give it another try.  I tried it once and lost a bunch of images (corrupted my files). Of course I had back-ups, but I swore it off and haven't looked back.  lol

I'll give it another go I guess.  :/


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## Rebekah5280 (May 24, 2013)

kathythorson said:


> Rebekah5280 said:
> 
> 
> > Photoshop.
> ...



That is a lot of images!  I only take on small weddings, my average coverage is 4 hours.  I usually end up with around 400 and then whittle it down to around 200 to edit.  But, I only do long edits (3-5 minutes) on about 40 of the pictures.  The rest are usually just crop, contrast and color correct =  1 minutes-ish.


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## Big Mike (May 24, 2013)

Another time saver, may be to take a different philosophy about it.  For example, do we really need to fully edit all the images we show to a client?  I know several photographers who only do basic corrections before the clients get to see them, and then it's only the ones that get ordered as prints or in albums that get to a finished state.  

Are you selling prints/products etc., or selling the files?  Lots of pros & cons either way...

Also, it could be something as simple as being a harsher critic of your own work, and delivering fewer images to the client.
For example, if you do a 1 hour family portrait sitting, how many images are you shooting? editing? showing or delivering to the client?  If your giving them 100 files/images....that's a lot of work.  But if you weed out the 'only OK' images, could you cut that number in half...or even less?  That would be a lot less work, less time etc.  
A lot of photographers seem to be worried that they will choose the wrong ones, and that the client might like these ones, or those ones best.  That sort of thinking isn't good.  

We need to remember that we are the experts and that they are hiring us, not only to take the photos, but to deliver what we consider a great product.  So in my mind, part of that service is imposing my 'professional' opinion about what is a good photo and what isn't.  Therefore, I only show/deliver the very best of the best.  Sometimes that's only a few images out of hundreds that I shot...but that's a lot better (for me) that editing and delivering 80% of the shots I took.  

Of course, it depends what we're doing.  A wedding will have many moments that you are documenting...so it can be many images.  But for a portrait sitting (or wedding formals)...no need to give more than one of each pose/group.

I'm sure that some (or much) of this doesn't directly apply to you...but hopefully all this brain storming can help you a little.


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## Designer (May 24, 2013)

FWIW: there was a thread on here a couple of days ago where a couple of entrepreneurs were begging for editing work.  They quoted $1 per image as I recall.  Look them up.


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