December 23, 2023 • 16 mins
Do you feel "stuck" at a Day Job, when you'd rather be running your own business? Fear not, friend! I was in your shoes for years, and looking back, I'm amazed at how much those jobs prepared me for the things I'm doing now!
In this first of a 3-part series called "Lessons from a Day Job," I'll be sharing the power of planning your calendar each December, and the transformative power of meticulous planning and goal setting. I'll take you behind the scenes of how calendar mastery and deliberate goal crafting can not only reshape your business but also revolutionize your personal freedom. This episode is a treasure trove of actionable strategies, walking you through my own method for setting "big win" goals and aligning your time management to support your entrepreneurial journey—whether you're just starting or refining your process.
Embark on a detailed exploration of how advanced planning and market timing can uncover the ebb and flow of your business's busy spells and quieter moments. With my story as a backdrop and practical advice as the cornerstone, I'll guide you through my method for planning a year of goal setting each December!
Ready for me? Don't miss these upcoming episodes in the days ahead:
Lessons from a Day Job, Part 2: Planning Your Marketing
Lessons from a Day Job, Part 3: Planning Your Budget
QUICK LINKS:
Square 8 Studio Annual and Quarterly Calendars: https://www.square8studio.com/calendar
(Use promo code BOP for 90% off our Annual Calendar through Jan. 15!)
College Photo 101: https://www.square8studio.com/college101
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to the Bop the business of
photography podcast with RobGreen, a photographer to
contagiously positive clientsand fierce believer in building
people-focused businesses thatleave a lasting impact.
If you're an entrepreneur withdreams in your head, ideas in
your heart and passions burningdeep down in your soul, this is
the perfect place to be, becausethis is where dreams come to
(00:33):
thrive.
So are you ready to build yourbusiness while your clients and
make photo magic?
Here's your host, rob Green.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Coming at you from DFW Texas.
You are listening to the Bop.
So glad to have you with us.
Friends.
I believe this episode or, asyou'll soon find out, series of
episodes is going to be a reallyfun change of pace for us.
This holiday season I startedthinking about what I wanted to
do for these Christmas episodesof the Bop and how I wanted to
(01:07):
go about these, and it got methinking about what was going
through my heart and mind thistime of year when I was just
starting my business full-time,or when I was just about to go
full-time, or when I just hadthis dream of going full-time
but it felt forever far awaybecause I was stuck at my day
job.
(01:27):
Now, I say stuck, I loved myday job.
For those of you that don'tknow, I spent a number of years
working in churches as acreative director, working in
youth ministry had a blast doingit.
But all that time my heart wasreally set on this long-term
dream of wanting to justvolunteer at a church for free
(01:49):
and run a creative business thatpaid the bills.
That's where I wanted to bedrawing revenue from was from
running my own creative business.
Now, at the time when I firstwas coming out of college, I
thought this was going to be allabout logos, branding, graphic
design, album artwork formusicians, had no idea
(02:11):
photography was going to be apart of the equation.
But I still had this dream oftaking a creative business
full-time.
And so, for the person who'slistening today and you're
sitting at your desk in a dayjob or you're home with your
family but thinking about goingback to that day job after the
holidays and you're just goinggosh, it would be so nice to be
able to make my own schedule,run my own business, do this
(02:33):
thing full-time.
This episode, or these episodes,are going to be for you,
because here's what we're goingto do, especially on the BOP.
We run these episodes about 45minutes to an hour and 15
minutes depending on how theinterviews go with our guests.
But what I'm going to do isthis episode is actually going
to be broken up into three parts.
(02:53):
Now, if you've been listeningto the show for any length of
time, you know we love to kickoff every show with a BOP bite,
and BOP bites are these littlebite-sized nuggets of goodness
that, if all you've got is a fewminutes in your car on your way
to work or school, you canlisten in the car and get
something that is actionable toapply to your business right
(03:14):
then and there on the spot.
Well, what we're going to do isI'm going to take this one
episode and break it up intothree BOP bites, and each of
these BOP bites are going to befocused on lessons from my day
job, lessons that I learnedwhile going to my nine to five
job, longing to one day have abusiness, wondering what, what I
(03:40):
could possibly glean from mycurrent line of work that would
apply to my business.
But in retrospect, as I lookback, there was so much about
those jobs that I was working inmy nine to five that are
massively Influential in termsof how I run my business today.
Now, some of those are thingsthat are very unique and
(04:02):
specific to me, but so many ofthem are things that can apply
and be utilized by every singleperson Listening to this episode
and the two that will follow.
And so here's how this is gonnawork.
In today's episode, I'm gonna besharing with you about how I
plan my calendar.
This is a rhythm for me thathas been a long running Part of
(04:24):
my business that goes all theway back to my days working in
youth ministry and I'll tell youabout how that happened.
And then, in our next episode,I'll talk about planning your
marketing.
Once you have your calendar set, planning your marketing takes
on a whole different feel, andit's amazing and powerful what
you can do with your marketingOnce you have a calendar planned
out in advance.
(04:44):
And then, finally, in the thirdpart of this three-part series,
I'm gonna talk to you about howI plan my budget each year so
that, hopefully for you, youwalk away with a clear picture
as you are going through theseholiday seasons, going through
what for many photographers is aslow season in their business.
I'm gonna give you threeactionable tools, actionable
(05:04):
steps you can take in yourbusiness to lay the foundation
for an incredible 2024.
So are you ready?
Let's dive in.
Today's bop bite has to do withplanning your calendar, and the
bop bite is this Tell your timewhere to go now or wonder where
(05:25):
it went later, and Unfortunately, I learned this lesson all too
well while sitting at my day job.
Here's how it happened.
So we had a really incredibleyouth ministry that I was
working in in Atlanta, georgia.
We had anywhere from 800 to athousand students coming on a
weekly basis.
The production value of aWednesday night program for
(05:45):
these students was through theroof.
They had a great time and I wasthe guy responsible for
overseeing all of these things.
Now that may not sound like ithas much Connection to
photography, but here's how Ilearned today's lesson this
particular youth ministry.
We always took a break forsummer.
We would go on a couple trips,but by and large, we use the
(06:05):
summer for planning the yearahead, and what that meant was
we had an incredible Launchevery fall to our work and we
had a incredible finale to ourwork every spring, where we'd
have one last big event, andthat was how we encapsulated our
year.
And so, of course, for me beingthe creative director, I was
responsible for creating ayear-end video that had
(06:28):
highlights from all the thingsthat we did throughout the year
to show at the end of the night.
Well, me being theprocrastinator that I was, I
wound up waiting till the lastminute to put this video
together, like I always did, andI found myself up at the church
at like two or three in themorning the night before this
(06:48):
big yearly finale for our youthministry, and I'm just I'm
bleary-eyed, I'm my eyes arecrossed from staring at screens
for so long and I'm like Gosh,there has got to be a better way
.
I cannot keep doing this everyyear.
It's not like I don't know.
These dates are coming.
(07:08):
It's not like I don't know.
This finale is coming each year.
I wonder what it would be likeif, next year, I Started
building the video as we went,so there wasn't as much to do at
the end and y'all it worked.
It worked so well, in fact, thatI went from being the guy that
everyone on my team was waitingfor to get things done To being
(07:29):
the guy that was driving theship and making sure we were
staying ahead of the game,working on things in advance,
and what our team found was thecaliber and quality of our work
increased Dramatically when wehad time to plan ahead and
really build out our ideas.
Also, the amount and volume ofwork we were able to do while
(07:50):
actually working less and withless stress went up Tremendously
.
Why?
Because we had a plan.
We weren't working in the finalhours, everything wasn't
moment-to-moment, it was allworked out with plenty of time
to spare, living in margin.
What was happening was, when wedidn't plan our time, we wound
up wasting lots of time, and sothen the time that we were
(08:10):
working was actually spentgrinding and stressing our way
through these projects, becauseeverything was so last minute.
But when you tell your timewhere to go, you don't have to
wonder where it went.
And, friends, I don't want youto have to learn this lesson the
hard way, like I did.
I want you to be able to thrive.
So what I want to do in ourremaining time together here on
(08:30):
this episode is walk you throughhow I plan my calendar each
year.
I just finished doing thisexercise recently for 2024, and
I'm so excited about the thingsthat we have planned.
But here's the process that Iuse annually.
I have two calendars that I runoff of.
One is an annual calendar, oneis a quarterly calendar, and, by
(08:52):
the way, both of the calendarsthat I personally use in my
business are on my online shop.
And for those of you listening,I have an incredible deal for
you.
Between now and January 15th,you can visit square eight,
studio comm slash calendar and,using the code BOP, you can
(09:12):
download my annual calendar.
That's normally ten dollars.
You can get it for just ninetynine cents again.
That's square eight, studiocomm slash calendar, and use
promo code BOP to get my annualcalendar for ninety nine cents.
That way, you can plan usingthe same tools that I'm using
when I do this each year.
So let's just take this fromthe top.
With my annual calendar, thevery first thing that I do is I
(09:34):
mark my out-of-office dates.
I'm starting with things likeChristmas vacation, thanksgiving
vacation, birthday vacation anytime that I plan to be out of
office, if I'm speaking at aconference, whatever it may be,
if I'm gonna be out of townShooting a wedding, I mark all
of my out-of-office dates first.
The main reason I do this isbecause I want to make sure I'm
(09:57):
protecting my rest and guardingmy rest and creating rhythms of
rest in my business, and so ifthat's something that, for you,
you're like gosh, I need morerhythms of rest in my business.
I don't ever take time off.
I want to encourage you to goback and check out.
I did an entire episode onrhythms of rest last Christmas
where I deep dive the topic ofhow I build my rhythms of rest
(10:19):
into my calendar.
But that's the first thing thatI mark off with my calendar or
my out-of-office dates.
The next thing that I mark offare any additional essential
dates for me and my family,things like birthdays or
Holidays.
Like this year, I set asidetime to go and visit my parents
on Mother's Day and Father's Day.
They couldn't believe it, butit's because I scheduled that in
advance.
For me also, essential datesmeans things like back to school
(10:42):
now for y'all that if you'vegot kids, that may be like your
personal family's back to schoolwindow for me.
I don't have kids, so for me,back to school is all about
winter TCU students coming back,because that's gonna impact my
work and my rhythms of how I'mworking and what I'm planning
for for you.
It may also be things liketryouts or game days for teams
that your kids are on.
(11:02):
That's the second piece for me.
I start with the rhythms ofrest, then I block off the
essential dates for me and myfamily From there.
It's all about labeling big wins.
I wanna know each month, whatam I trying to accomplish?
If I got nothing elseaccomplished in that month, what
is the big win gonna be for me?
(11:24):
Like for me right now, as I'mlooking at January, I'm planning
a college photo 101 freefive-day mini course to be able
to help photographers jump inand learn more about how I have
built a six-figure photographybusiness that the primary driver
of my photo revenue is comingfrom college and sorority
(11:46):
photography.
That's gonna be the big win forme is getting people into that
course in big numbers in January.
That's where all my energy isgonna be focused.
But what is it for you?
Maybe for you it's gonna be allabout booking a certain number
of weddings, because there's alot of people getting engaged
around the holidays.
Maybe for you it's gonna bethat you wanna start getting all
of your mini session ideastogether.
(12:07):
We'll talk more about that inpart two of this series, where
we'll get into planning yourmarketing.
But for each month I figure outwhat is that one big win?
Then, what I do and this getsme over into my quarterly
calendar, because with aquarterly calendar this is where
you can start to get moredetailed, more granular, and on
my quarterly calendar I setthree to four sub-goals under my
(12:28):
main goal.
So for me that looks like inJanuary.
That looks like setting acertain number of students that
I wanna see enrolled in CollegePhoto 101.
From there I wanna set a goalfor a certain number of students
that wind up purchasing.
I have a full seven-hourcollege and sorority course that
I'm gonna be telling peopleabout during College Photo 101.
That if you're seeing thepotential for college and
(12:50):
sorority photography in yourbusiness and you want the full A
to Z system, I've got thecourse on that'll take you there
.
So that's another goal that Iset within my main goal.
The third goal, kind of keepingwith that college and sorority
theme, is the number of collegegraduates that book a session
with us during January.
Each year we book about 10% ofthe senior girls at TCU and I
wanna make sure because I know alot of them start booking those
(13:13):
when they're coming back toschool from their holiday break
in January.
That's one of the first thingsthey're thinking about is
getting their grad photos on thecalendar.
So I wanna make sure that I'vegot a goal in mind of how many
people I wanna book, becausethat's gonna be a big driver of
revenue for me during the monthof January.
And then, finally, my fourthgoal keeping with that college
and sorority theme is the numberof sororities booking events
(13:36):
and recruitment videos with us,because this is one of the
things that you'll hear me talkabout if you do wind up
enrolling in that college photo101 course.
Is that, if you limit, if youonly think about college
photography being like highschool senior photography and
you only think about collegeseniors, you're missing the bulk
of the market.
Sororities have tons of needsfor photography and videography
(13:59):
throughout the year and for alot of schools, their exec teams
roll over around the first ofthe year, meaning they're
setting new budgets and gettingexcited about planning a new set
of sorority events that they'regonna need captured by
photographers.
So what do I do?
I set a goal around the numberof sororities that book events
with us during the month ofJanuary.
(14:19):
Now, once I've labeled allthese big wins, what am I gonna
do?
I'm gonna go mark off dates onmy calendar that support those
big wins.
So right now, if you were tolook at my calendar in the month
of January, I've already markedoff five days for that five day
mini course.
I've also marked off days on mycalendar where I'm expecting
(14:40):
that sororities, based on whenthey booked with us last year,
are likely to be booking theirevents and exec team shoots with
us this coming year.
I'm also going in and markingoff dates of spring grad
sessions that have already beenbooked, because we roll out our
spring calendars every November.
So I've already had dozens ofdates come off my spring
(15:01):
calendar that I wanna make sureI've accounted for when I'm
looking at my spring of 2024.
All of this works together tostart to give me a big picture
idea of how things are shapingup for the year ahead.
And it's amazing what happens,because when you see all these
dates in advance on yourcalendar, you start to see where
the busy seasons are going tobe, where the slower seasons are
(15:23):
going to be, and it's going tostart to give you ideas of how
to utilize those slower seasonsto really leverage them for
success in your business.
That's what next week's episodeis all about is planning your
marketing, because y'all, ifyou'll tell your time where to
go now, you won't have to wonderwhere it went later.
That's it for today's episode.
(15:43):
Y'all, we'll see you in a fewdays with part two of lessons
from a day job.
Until next time, friends, keeplearning, keep loving and keep
chasing those dreams you weremade for.
You know what no photographerever asks how can I make less
(16:19):
money?
As small business owners, we'realways looking to make just a
little bit more, and most of usjust need someone to show us how
.
What if I told you college andsorority photography could give
you not one, not two, but 17different ways to make more
money in the months ahead.
To download my free guide,visit squar8studiocom.
(16:40):
Slash 17ways today.
You're listening to the Bop the business of
photography podcast with RobGreen, a photographer to
contagiously positive clientsand fierce believer in building
people-focused businesses thatleave a lasting impact.
If you're an entrepreneur withdreams in your head, ideas in
your heart and passions burningdeep down in your soul, this is
the perfect place to be, becausethis is where dreams come to
(00:33):
thrive.
So are you ready to build yourbusiness while your clients and
make photo magic?
Here's your host, rob Green.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Coming at you from DFW Texas.
You are listening to the Bop.
So glad to have you with us.
Friends.
I believe this episode or, asyou'll soon find out, series of
episodes is going to be a reallyfun change of pace for us.
This holiday season I startedthinking about what I wanted to
do for these Christmas episodesof the Bop and how I wanted to
(01:07):
go about these, and it got methinking about what was going
through my heart and mind thistime of year when I was just
starting my business full-time,or when I was just about to go
full-time, or when I just hadthis dream of going full-time
but it felt forever far awaybecause I was stuck at my day
job.
(01:27):
Now, I say stuck, I loved myday job.
For those of you that don'tknow, I spent a number of years
working in churches as acreative director, working in
youth ministry had a blast doingit.
But all that time my heart wasreally set on this long-term
dream of wanting to justvolunteer at a church for free
(01:49):
and run a creative business thatpaid the bills.
That's where I wanted to bedrawing revenue from was from
running my own creative business.
Now, at the time when I firstwas coming out of college, I
thought this was going to be allabout logos, branding, graphic
design, album artwork formusicians, had no idea
(02:11):
photography was going to be apart of the equation.
But I still had this dream oftaking a creative business
full-time.
And so, for the person who'slistening today and you're
sitting at your desk in a dayjob or you're home with your
family but thinking about goingback to that day job after the
holidays and you're just goinggosh, it would be so nice to be
able to make my own schedule,run my own business, do this
(02:33):
thing full-time.
This episode, or these episodes,are going to be for you,
because here's what we're goingto do, especially on the BOP.
We run these episodes about 45minutes to an hour and 15
minutes depending on how theinterviews go with our guests.
But what I'm going to do isthis episode is actually going
to be broken up into three parts.
(02:53):
Now, if you've been listeningto the show for any length of
time, you know we love to kickoff every show with a BOP bite,
and BOP bites are these littlebite-sized nuggets of goodness
that, if all you've got is a fewminutes in your car on your way
to work or school, you canlisten in the car and get
something that is actionable toapply to your business right
(03:14):
then and there on the spot.
Well, what we're going to do isI'm going to take this one
episode and break it up intothree BOP bites, and each of
these BOP bites are going to befocused on lessons from my day
job, lessons that I learnedwhile going to my nine to five
job, longing to one day have abusiness, wondering what, what I
(03:40):
could possibly glean from mycurrent line of work that would
apply to my business.
But in retrospect, as I lookback, there was so much about
those jobs that I was working inmy nine to five that are
massively Influential in termsof how I run my business today.
Now, some of those are thingsthat are very unique and
(04:02):
specific to me, but so many ofthem are things that can apply
and be utilized by every singleperson Listening to this episode
and the two that will follow.
And so here's how this is gonnawork.
In today's episode, I'm gonna besharing with you about how I
plan my calendar.
This is a rhythm for me thathas been a long running Part of
(04:24):
my business that goes all theway back to my days working in
youth ministry and I'll tell youabout how that happened.
And then, in our next episode,I'll talk about planning your
marketing.
Once you have your calendar set, planning your marketing takes
on a whole different feel, andit's amazing and powerful what
you can do with your marketingOnce you have a calendar planned
out in advance.
(04:44):
And then, finally, in the thirdpart of this three-part series,
I'm gonna talk to you about howI plan my budget each year so
that, hopefully for you, youwalk away with a clear picture
as you are going through theseholiday seasons, going through
what for many photographers is aslow season in their business.
I'm gonna give you threeactionable tools, actionable
(05:04):
steps you can take in yourbusiness to lay the foundation
for an incredible 2024.
So are you ready?
Let's dive in.
Today's bop bite has to do withplanning your calendar, and the
bop bite is this Tell your timewhere to go now or wonder where
(05:25):
it went later, and Unfortunately, I learned this lesson all too
well while sitting at my day job.
Here's how it happened.
So we had a really incredibleyouth ministry that I was
working in in Atlanta, georgia.
We had anywhere from 800 to athousand students coming on a
weekly basis.
The production value of aWednesday night program for
(05:45):
these students was through theroof.
They had a great time and I wasthe guy responsible for
overseeing all of these things.
Now that may not sound like ithas much Connection to
photography, but here's how Ilearned today's lesson this
particular youth ministry.
We always took a break forsummer.
We would go on a couple trips,but by and large, we use the
(06:05):
summer for planning the yearahead, and what that meant was
we had an incredible Launchevery fall to our work and we
had a incredible finale to ourwork every spring, where we'd
have one last big event, andthat was how we encapsulated our
year.
And so, of course, for me beingthe creative director, I was
responsible for creating ayear-end video that had
(06:28):
highlights from all the thingsthat we did throughout the year
to show at the end of the night.
Well, me being theprocrastinator that I was, I
wound up waiting till the lastminute to put this video
together, like I always did, andI found myself up at the church
at like two or three in themorning the night before this
(06:48):
big yearly finale for our youthministry, and I'm just I'm
bleary-eyed, I'm my eyes arecrossed from staring at screens
for so long and I'm like Gosh,there has got to be a better way
.
I cannot keep doing this everyyear.
It's not like I don't know.
These dates are coming.
(07:08):
It's not like I don't know.
This finale is coming each year.
I wonder what it would be likeif, next year, I Started
building the video as we went,so there wasn't as much to do at
the end and y'all it worked.
It worked so well, in fact, thatI went from being the guy that
everyone on my team was waitingfor to get things done To being
(07:29):
the guy that was driving theship and making sure we were
staying ahead of the game,working on things in advance,
and what our team found was thecaliber and quality of our work
increased Dramatically when wehad time to plan ahead and
really build out our ideas.
Also, the amount and volume ofwork we were able to do while
(07:50):
actually working less and withless stress went up Tremendously
.
Why?
Because we had a plan.
We weren't working in the finalhours, everything wasn't
moment-to-moment, it was allworked out with plenty of time
to spare, living in margin.
What was happening was, when wedidn't plan our time, we wound
up wasting lots of time, and sothen the time that we were
(08:10):
working was actually spentgrinding and stressing our way
through these projects, becauseeverything was so last minute.
But when you tell your timewhere to go, you don't have to
wonder where it went.
And, friends, I don't want youto have to learn this lesson the
hard way, like I did.
I want you to be able to thrive.
So what I want to do in ourremaining time together here on
(08:30):
this episode is walk you throughhow I plan my calendar each
year.
I just finished doing thisexercise recently for 2024, and
I'm so excited about the thingsthat we have planned.
But here's the process that Iuse annually.
I have two calendars that I runoff of.
One is an annual calendar, oneis a quarterly calendar, and, by
(08:52):
the way, both of the calendarsthat I personally use in my
business are on my online shop.
And for those of you listening,I have an incredible deal for
you.
Between now and January 15th,you can visit square eight,
studio comm slash calendar and,using the code BOP, you can
(09:12):
download my annual calendar.
That's normally ten dollars.
You can get it for just ninetynine cents again.
That's square eight, studiocomm slash calendar, and use
promo code BOP to get my annualcalendar for ninety nine cents.
That way, you can plan usingthe same tools that I'm using
when I do this each year.
So let's just take this fromthe top.
With my annual calendar, thevery first thing that I do is I
(09:34):
mark my out-of-office dates.
I'm starting with things likeChristmas vacation, thanksgiving
vacation, birthday vacation anytime that I plan to be out of
office, if I'm speaking at aconference, whatever it may be,
if I'm gonna be out of townShooting a wedding, I mark all
of my out-of-office dates first.
The main reason I do this isbecause I want to make sure I'm
(09:57):
protecting my rest and guardingmy rest and creating rhythms of
rest in my business, and so ifthat's something that, for you,
you're like gosh, I need morerhythms of rest in my business.
I don't ever take time off.
I want to encourage you to goback and check out.
I did an entire episode onrhythms of rest last Christmas
where I deep dive the topic ofhow I build my rhythms of rest
(10:19):
into my calendar.
But that's the first thing thatI mark off with my calendar or
my out-of-office dates.
The next thing that I mark offare any additional essential
dates for me and my family,things like birthdays or
Holidays.
Like this year, I set asidetime to go and visit my parents
on Mother's Day and Father's Day.
They couldn't believe it, butit's because I scheduled that in
advance.
For me also, essential datesmeans things like back to school
(10:42):
now for y'all that if you'vegot kids, that may be like your
personal family's back to schoolwindow for me.
I don't have kids, so for me,back to school is all about
winter TCU students coming back,because that's gonna impact my
work and my rhythms of how I'mworking and what I'm planning
for for you.
It may also be things liketryouts or game days for teams
that your kids are on.
(11:02):
That's the second piece for me.
I start with the rhythms ofrest, then I block off the
essential dates for me and myfamily From there.
It's all about labeling big wins.
I wanna know each month, whatam I trying to accomplish?
If I got nothing elseaccomplished in that month, what
is the big win gonna be for me?
(11:24):
Like for me right now, as I'mlooking at January, I'm planning
a college photo 101 freefive-day mini course to be able
to help photographers jump inand learn more about how I have
built a six-figure photographybusiness that the primary driver
of my photo revenue is comingfrom college and sorority
(11:46):
photography.
That's gonna be the big win forme is getting people into that
course in big numbers in January.
That's where all my energy isgonna be focused.
But what is it for you?
Maybe for you it's gonna be allabout booking a certain number
of weddings, because there's alot of people getting engaged
around the holidays.
Maybe for you it's gonna bethat you wanna start getting all
of your mini session ideastogether.
(12:07):
We'll talk more about that inpart two of this series, where
we'll get into planning yourmarketing.
But for each month I figure outwhat is that one big win?
Then, what I do and this getsme over into my quarterly
calendar, because with aquarterly calendar this is where
you can start to get moredetailed, more granular, and on
my quarterly calendar I setthree to four sub-goals under my
(12:28):
main goal.
So for me that looks like inJanuary.
That looks like setting acertain number of students that
I wanna see enrolled in CollegePhoto 101.
From there I wanna set a goalfor a certain number of students
that wind up purchasing.
I have a full seven-hourcollege and sorority course that
I'm gonna be telling peopleabout during College Photo 101.
That if you're seeing thepotential for college and
(12:50):
sorority photography in yourbusiness and you want the full A
to Z system, I've got thecourse on that'll take you there
.
So that's another goal that Iset within my main goal.
The third goal, kind of keepingwith that college and sorority
theme, is the number of collegegraduates that book a session
with us during January.
Each year we book about 10% ofthe senior girls at TCU and I
wanna make sure because I know alot of them start booking those
(13:13):
when they're coming back toschool from their holiday break
in January.
That's one of the first thingsthey're thinking about is
getting their grad photos on thecalendar.
So I wanna make sure that I'vegot a goal in mind of how many
people I wanna book, becausethat's gonna be a big driver of
revenue for me during the monthof January.
And then, finally, my fourthgoal keeping with that college
and sorority theme is the numberof sororities booking events
(13:36):
and recruitment videos with us,because this is one of the
things that you'll hear me talkabout if you do wind up
enrolling in that college photo101 course.
Is that, if you limit, if youonly think about college
photography being like highschool senior photography and
you only think about collegeseniors, you're missing the bulk
of the market.
Sororities have tons of needsfor photography and videography
(13:59):
throughout the year and for alot of schools, their exec teams
roll over around the first ofthe year, meaning they're
setting new budgets and gettingexcited about planning a new set
of sorority events that they'regonna need captured by
photographers.
So what do I do?
I set a goal around the numberof sororities that book events
with us during the month ofJanuary.
(14:19):
Now, once I've labeled allthese big wins, what am I gonna
do?
I'm gonna go mark off dates onmy calendar that support those
big wins.
So right now, if you were tolook at my calendar in the month
of January, I've already markedoff five days for that five day
mini course.
I've also marked off days on mycalendar where I'm expecting
(14:40):
that sororities, based on whenthey booked with us last year,
are likely to be booking theirevents and exec team shoots with
us this coming year.
I'm also going in and markingoff dates of spring grad
sessions that have already beenbooked, because we roll out our
spring calendars every November.
So I've already had dozens ofdates come off my spring
(15:01):
calendar that I wanna make sureI've accounted for when I'm
looking at my spring of 2024.
All of this works together tostart to give me a big picture
idea of how things are shapingup for the year ahead.
And it's amazing what happens,because when you see all these
dates in advance on yourcalendar, you start to see where
the busy seasons are going tobe, where the slower seasons are
(15:23):
going to be, and it's going tostart to give you ideas of how
to utilize those slower seasonsto really leverage them for
success in your business.
That's what next week's episodeis all about is planning your
marketing, because y'all, ifyou'll tell your time where to
go now, you won't have to wonderwhere it went later.
That's it for today's episode.
(15:43):
Y'all, we'll see you in a fewdays with part two of lessons
from a day job.
Until next time, friends, keeplearning, keep loving and keep
chasing those dreams you weremade for.
You know what no photographerever asks how can I make less
(16:19):
money?
As small business owners, we'realways looking to make just a
little bit more, and most of usjust need someone to show us how
.
What if I told you college andsorority photography could give
you not one, not two, but 17different ways to make more
money in the months ahead.
To download my free guide,visit squar8studiocom.
(16:40):
Slash 17ways today.
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