If you're not using these five apps in your business, then you're doing it wrong.
For real though, no shame if you're not using these apps! Your journey into entrepreneurship is happening in divine order. Let's just say being an entrepreneur is all about the work-life balance. IMRITE?? Whether you're full time or part time photographer, these apps and services will take you to a whole new level! If you are either looking to make your business a legit business, or needing help managing finances or clients, this blog post is for youuuu! It's like having a whole new set of hands without actually having to hire someone. And hey, many of these apps will help other types of small businesses and not just photographers. So, here are five things that you need to have to run your business, and once you get started with these services, you literally will not be able to live without them.
Affiliate Disclosure: Many of these links are affiliate links, and we do receive a commission from some of these companies. We are independently owned, and the opinions expressed here are our own.
Trust me when I say this, but automations, automations, automations are foundational--and they will help save your sanity, especially once you've started scaling your business. So what is Honeybook? Honeybook is a CRM (Client Relationship Management system) and will be your workhorse and your virtual assistant. This is a platform where you can set up automations, and ultimately will help you stay organized for sessions, prep for each session, get to know your clients, and automatically trigger emails after they've booked. By not having automations set up in your business, you're telling the universe that you cannot take on more clients.
On the flip-side, if you are struggling to book clients, because you're not responding quick enough? Taking the time to set up your automations, brochures, contracts and proposals is time consuming, but so so so worth it! Once it's all done, you'll be able to stay on top of your clients, you'll feel more organized, Honeybook's auto payment reminders are sent to your clients so you are paid before you show up to your session, you'll have access to spreadsheets come tax time, you can easily invoice your clients and have them sign your contract all-in-one booking process, you'll be able to showcase your services with beautifully curated brochures, calendars that can be embedded into your brochures, proposals and even your website, and let's not forget about lead capturing! I might be forgetting some other feature that they offer because Honeybook does soooooo much! So what are you waiting for! You can get $200 off of Honeybook today by clicking this link! Not so sure if you're ready to invest? You can try it out for free! If you do try it out, I would recommend checking out their template gallery to get started so you're not starting from scratch.
Chase Ink Business Credit Card
If you already have a business checking account set up, and are looking to earn some points? Have you heard of the Profit First Model? By setting up separate checking accounts for your expenses, income, taxes, profits, owners compensation, getting a credit card that helps you earn points (aka CASH BACK BEBE), this will support that model. I know what you're thinking for most people credit cards may be a point of contention, but there are ways to use Credit Cards to your advantage. If you want to learn more about how to take advantage of all the credit card perks, I highly recommend reading Ramit Sethi's book: "I Will Teach You to Be Rich." However, I digress. Using a Business Credit Card for your every day expenses, will add up to extra money in the bank! With the Chase Ink Business Credit Card, if you spend $6,000 in the first 3 months (hello, new gear!) you will get an extra 900,000 (which equates to $900 cash back). Plus for the first 12 months you get no interest financing. So if you were already thinking that you're wanting to upgrade to the latest and greatest gear, you may want to check out this card to help you finance it! Click the link to apply now!
Welcome to the world of AI. I know what you may be thinking that AI is probably going to destroy the creative industry, but it's time to embrace AI because it's not going away. This is an AI Culling and Editing Software. Right now the Editing feature is in a beta form, but once they've honed this technology, they have already informed their clients that there will be a price increase for this feature if you have not already bought into it yet. Now there are a lot of other AI editing and culling softwares out right now, and I have not compared them apples to apples. I can only give you insight into the benefits of what Aftershoot has done inside of my business.
Right now, I have only invested in the Culling technology but I get to use the Beta Editing for no additional cost. The tool learns from you the more you cull and edit with it, so the more time you invest in training it, the better it gets!
As a wedding photographer, the culling feature alone saves me so much time! For an average wedding, I shoot approximately 10,000 photos for an eight hour wedding day between myself and my second photographer. YIKES! After one round of culling, the AI feature has collected 2,874 3 star ratings (this can be changed to whatever rating you prefer, I just use those as the photos I want to go through and most likely edit), 41 highlights, 492 blurred photos, 40 closed eyes, 6787 duplicates and 779 warnings. I typically do not deliver 2,874 photos for a wedding, this is a much more manageable number to cull for me and go through which images I'd like to edit. The 41 highlights, I go through and select for sneak peeks to deliver to my clients the day after the wedding. Again, saving me soooooo much time scrolling through all the photos.
As far as the editing feature in Aftershoot, I have set up one preset profile, however, I have not editing enough of a new preset that I am trying out. You do need 2,5000 photos already edited with your desired preset to train the AI tool to edit for you. It does do a decent job of editing, with some minor exposure fixes that I'll have to adjust once it's worked its magic. I have not spent a lot of time training the editing feature, but I can definitely see the benefit of saving time so you can focus on your zone of genius! By using my referral link, you can Save 10% off your subscription now by clicking the link. If you're on the fence about it, try it out for starters--it's free to try! If you are trying it for free, have a few catalogs ready for Aftershoot to cull and edit for you! I believe you have 30 days to try it out.
One thing to note, is that you will need Adobe Lightroom Classic so it can edit the catalogs for you!
Welcome to the cloud space! Let me just start off by saying as a photographer, I think it's safe to say you truly understand the importance of preserving those precious memories. Yup, then this one should be a no-brainer. This software will automatically backup your precious memories to the cloud--replicating them for safe keeping. Subscribe and get a free month here!
If you're just starting out in your photography journey, Lightroom is an absolute must! While, Photoshop is necessary for head swaps and some larger edits, Lightroom is better suited for editing a whole catalog of photos with batch editing. While I do not have a code for this application, it is an absolute must for an aspiring photographer looking to grow their clientele.
In order to legitimize your business, it's important to make sure you have separate bank accounts for your business so not all of it is sitting in your personal account. In order to keep track of your profits, expenses, income and mileage, I highly recommend checking out Quickbooks Self-Employed. Unfortunately, there's no referral code I can give you to get a discount, but this can easily be connected to your accountant, and will save you so much time come tax time. It's like having your own book keeper (kind of). Not to say you wouldn't need to hire a book keeper but if you're a business with 3 or less employees, it's likely you won't necessarily need a book keeper, this will do the organization for you. The bonus is that you can turn on mileage tracking on your phone, so everywhere you go, you can track your mileage. I can seriously get on the app when there is downtime and start categorizing whether each transaction is a business or personal transaction, and QB's does the rest!
Alrighttyy there you have it! Ope--that was six, but who's counting.
My best advice for you is to not take on too much at once. So start where you think you need help the most, and build each block from there. As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day! If you think this was helpful and want to learn more about our mentorships, feel free to drop a line and say hi!
