3 Tips About Automating Your Workflow You Can't Afford To Miss
What if you could run your photo booth business more efficiently? Would you?
I sure hope so!
Today, I'm going to be sharing with you some tips that will help you automate and streamline your photo booth business to make it run more efficiently. Following these tips will save you time and energy, but more importantly, make you more money!
Remember, the less time you spend on admin work means more time on finding new clients! And if your photo booth business is your side hustle, this is even more important for you!
Let's jump in.
Tip #1: Client Management
Alright, so you've been in the photo booth business for a while now and you've started to become busier and busier.
First off, congratulations! It's an incredible accomplishment when your business finally takes off and your bookings keep growing.
With that said, as you become busier, you're going to notice that you have more work to do, but less time to do it.
When you first start your photo booth business, keeping track of your jobs and clients with Google Docs or Microsoft Excel isn't a bad idea - it's how most of us start. You likely don't have many clients and you're able to easily manage your bookings without much confusion.
But, as you become busier, you need to streamline this process. Everything from the initial consultation to the event itself needs to become automated to maximize your time and earning potential.
Two of these customer management tools that we find many photo booth owners use are Táve and Pixifi. These customer management tools are going to be crucial in automating your photo booth business.
With Pixifi, for example, you're able to collect the relevant booking information, create a proposal, send emails relating to the proposal, send quotes, create contracts, request retainers/deposits for your booking, follow up with clients, and more. All of this without you doing a single thing.
Do you see how automating your business can save you time? I hope so.
Not only will these tools help make your life easier on the client-side of things, but they'll help you keep track of your work.
Creating tasks, reminders, calendar events - it'll do all of this for you.
And once your events are over and it comes time to reflect on your business, they will also give you analytics. Things like referrals, what's selling (so that you're able to push what's selling and get rid of what's not), and profit margins to name a few.
If you're interested in trying out Pixifi, we have a code that will give you three months free to try the service. This is an amazing opportunity to see how much more efficient it can make your business. Click here and use code: MDRN2015 to take advantage of the offer!
Tip #2: Running Your Events
So your side hustle has started to become a full-time job and you need help, right? Heck, you might even still have a normal full-time job.
Well, it may be time to hire some employees and remember, you cannot build an empire alone.
How much do you pay your employees?
How much you pay your employees is going to depend greatly on your market. Additionally, it's also going to depend on what is required of them.
Many photo booth business owners have found that paying their employees, roughly, $25 per hour as well as any milage or drive-time (if the event is outside of the local area) is a good rule of thumb.
With that said, however, you are going to be paying your employees more than they would likely make in another part-time job. You must find employees that are a good match for your business.
Catalina from MDRN Photobooth Company has said that she likes to hire photographers or students, but mostly, photographers.
Why?
If you hire photographers they're likely going to be making more in the short 2-4 hour event as a photo booth attendant than they would as a second shooter at a wedding. This means that they're benefiting, but you're also benefiting because they have photography knowledge.
If something were to go wrong with your photo booth, it's always better to have someone knowledgable on the subject.
However, don't think that you should hire someone based on their skills instead of their character. You can always teach skills, but you can't teach character nor personality.
Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.
Anthony Bourdain
When you do start hiring employees, remember that, despite their photography knowledge, you should still have a training manual and onboarding process to ensure the best results. Make sure you set the appropriate expectations from day one.
Tip #3: Everything Else
There are a couple of other ways that you can do to automate your photo booth business and this tip is for that - everything else.
Dropbox
Once you have photo booth attendants that are in charge of picking up and dropping off the booths, creating a Dropbox is another great idea.
By having a Dropbox where you can share your templates, it'll allow you to send your designed overlays directly to your photo booth without having to be there in person. Keep in mind, however, your photo booth software must be capable of doing this. Check out our Salsa Software if you're looking for one in particular.
Mobile Internet and Hotspots
Sometimes certain venues will have a WiFi network that you're able to connect your booth to in order to share the images directly on social media.
However, it's important to remember that your booth is likely not going to be the only device on the network. Sometimes this can cause a negative guest experience.
We recommend that you use either a cellular-enabled iPad (if you're using something like the iPad-based Salsa Photo Booth) or a mobile hot-spot.
An unlimited data plan is also a highly recommended idea. Uploading hundreds of photos can eat up small data plans quickly.
Hire a Bookkeeper and/or Accountant
Hiring a bookkeeper and/or accountant is a great way to save yourself some time. Of course, if you enjoy this part of owning a business, by all means, you're able to do it yourself.
The reality is, however, that most people don't like bookkeeping and having a designated person that handles it can speed up your workflow, properly filing taxes on your behalf, and just make your life a little bit easier.
Hire a Template Designer
This is another one that I was hesitant to put in because a lot of photo booth owners are photographers or creatives.
Again, if you enjoy this part of your photo booth business, stick with it and design away. If you don't enjoy it, or find that it takes up a lot of your time, outsourcing some of your design work isn't a bad idea.
A lot of photo booth owners tend to find a designated designer or use a service like Fiverr to get this done. Either way, it's totally up to you!
And that's it! We hope that these tips help you automate your photo booth business and make you more money!
Want to learn more tips and tricks on how to have a successful photo booth business?
Check out our other blog posts and our 26-Episode Video Series where you can hear from real PBSCO Photobooth owners on how they've led their businesses to success!