Where would my life be without checklists and systems in place? Not entirely sure but it DEFINITELY would be very chaotic. My brain LOVESS to get distracted with all the things, all the education and all the ideas! Systems help me stay on top of tasks, keep all my information organized & easy to access, and ensure a smooth and consistent client experience across the board! I use a combination of Trello, Google Calendar, HoneyBook and my Simplified Planner to keep track of my monthly, weekly and daily to-do’s.

Each wedding & portrait client gets their own HoneyBook project with all the tasks & deadlines spelled out so I never forget to communicate something to them (which helps solve problems and questions before they ever arise!) and make sure that I’m organized & prepared for their shoots & wedding days! HoneyBook houses all of our communication, their workflow to keep me on track, send their proposal & invoice, send questionnaires to gather information, and easily schedule meeting with my clients all in one central place. It also allows me to communicate with my second photographer for that wedding day within that same client’s project space, and collaborate with other vendors even! I’m not quite sure how I would keep everything organized without HoneyBook! It also includes a pipeline so I can easily see who I need to follow up with and which stage of my clients are in at any given time.

Write out your workflow and make a checklist that you can easily reference for EACH client! Also, I’ve found making a chart that shows the progress of where each client is in the overall process has been super helpful to easily see what I’ve done and what needs to still be accomplished for each client at a quick glance!

HoneyBook has been a tremendous help to systemize and automate things like sending out proposals, contracts, invoices, questionnaires & timelines within minutes with email templates that I’ve pre-written and saved for easy use! I have a workflow added to each project (automatically through my website’s contact form that is integrated with HB) so I’m always reminded of tasks by due date and never miss anything crucial! It also helps me keep track of my source of referrals and financial monthly reports that I look at especially while paying sales tax for each month.

Here’s my discount code to get 50% off of HoneyBook for your first year! Trust me, you won’t want to look back!

There are SO many other features and resources within this system that makes it an absolute MUST HAVE in a growing photography business! One of the biggest things I’m so happy I did while I was growing my business was to set up HoneyBook before I was at full capacity with shoots. It totally saved my butt when my business really ramped up and I had a lot of clients to keep track of especially while still working my full-time job at Accenture!

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More Great Business Tips – The MP Education Series

Part I: Why You Should Invest in Photography Education

Part II: 3 Lessons I’ve Learned in 3 Years as a Wedding Photographer

Part III: Website Essentials & Tips for Wedding & Portrait Photographers

Part IV: Wedding Photography Preparation Workflow

Part V: Creating a Marketing Strategy & Workflow for Your Business

Part VI: 5 Tips for Crafting a Stellar Client Experience

Part VII: Why Creatives Should Consider a Quarterly Planning System

Part VIII: Weekly Batch Schedule for Photographers

Part IX: Crafting a Productive Weekly Schedule

Part X: Keeping Track of your Finances as a Photographer

Part XI: Setting White Balance Manually to Save Hours While Editing

Part XII: Introducing One-On-One Mentoring Sessions 

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