5 Things To Do During Quarantine to Scale your Business
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****disclaimer: I know that everyone is handling our current situation with the Covid-19 outbreak and quarantine differently. If you are one that needs to hunker down and just be, give yourself the freedom to do that. If you are one to dig into work, give your self the freedom to do that. Most importantly you should be taking care of yourself and your family. ***
Guys I get it! I do! You are bummed about those sessions that have gotten canceled or postponed. You are worried about whether or not you are going to make it through this thing and still have a business on the other side. I’m here to tell you, you can and you will. If you want it. There will be different reactions to our current situation. Some will hang it up. Hope they can find something else. Then, there will be the ones that dig in, do the work, and push their business forward.
Reframe your thinking now. There are things you can be doing to scale your business. Even (especially) during this sudden down time! Trust me, you want to be the name potential customers think (or come across) when they are ready to buy or book. Here are a few things you could be doing NOW to move you business forward. Consider this down time (for me its a bit crazier, lets be honest) a blessing in disguise and get to work. I personally have taken on a more busy role in the house as my husbands work has gotten busier. That means squeezing in an hour of work when I can or not at all if there is no time (give yourself some grace for the days that you “literally cannot"). Having a few effective things to work on when I do have a few moments, makes me feel much more productive with the time I do get to work.
blog sessions you never got around to blogging
For a lot of my photographer friends, blogging is not a favorite past time. But hey you have a bunch of work just sitting on your computer or hard drive. Share it with the world. They want to see it. Then share it on the social medias. Tag the people, hopefully they will share it. Boom, your name in front of people you don’t even know. Then pin it. Pin the crap out of it. Even more eyes and traffic to your site. It’s a win-win-win.
start an email list (create an opt-in) and build your list
Guys, if you haven’t started an email list, do it now. I’m not super great about this one but I know its really important. Create and opt-in or freebie. People aren’t going to join your list just to get emails, unless they SUPER love you (aka your mom). Give them some value in exchange for their email. If the value is enough and you are sending them value after they will stick around and look forward to your emails. Send them garbage or spam and they are out. These are your mega fans. The ones that really want to hear from you and will make a point to open your emails. Then when it is time to book and you let them know first. Guess who they will book with, yeah YOU. I LOVE Flodesk for my email list. Super user friendly and easy to make it look pretty. I can even hook you up with a discount! (50% off!!!)
schedule social media (IG, Facebook, Pinterest)
You want to be front of mind for people. Now more than ever. People are sitting at home scrolling. Just me? Ok maybe its just me, but I doubt it. Social media posting can get exhausting REAL fast, so if you are a scheduler. Sit down and do it. Once a week, once a month. Whatever works best for you. Sit down schedule out what you can and if you can get it to auto post for you, I say go for it. For IG, I like Plann to help me plan things out. I don’t auto post but it gets me into a groove that makes it a little easier. For Facebook you can schedule your posting for your business page and its glorious. Finally, get on Pinterest. It is a HUGE traffic driver. You talk to any successful blogger and they will tell you the number one traffic driver to their website is Pinterest. You can do the things manually or you can get on Tailwind. It is so easy to use, will increase your Pinterest presence and boost your SEOs with all the traffic. Totally up to you! Be all up in the cyberspace right now. Think the long game, friends. It will pay off eventually.
boost website SEOs
The blogging and the pinning will help with this but you can spend some time specifically on your website boosting your SEO. If you are the one that built your website, this is on you. If you hired this out (it might have been done for you) there may still be some things you can do. Is your website verified? Have you set up a google business listing? Have you spent any time in Google Search Console? Make sure you have keywords plugged into all the places. Legit skimming the surface on this one because there is a lot that goes into it. If you need help with SEOs I have some resources and friends I can send you to. You boost those SEOs and you will have people landing on your website. This is how you will bring in new potential customers when they are searching for their next photographer. This is another long game approach. Its not going to improve over night. But working on it now will benefit you for the fall!
shoot personal work
Just because you don’t have sessions doesn’t mean your camera gets a break or should be collecting dust. Pick it up! You NEED to be shooting personal work. This is your chance to try those things you have been dying to shoot. Or stretch yourself, get out of the box, try a new challenge. ALL of it helps you narrow down your voice, your why, and helps set you apart. You don’t want people landing on your work and thinking its cookie cutter or generic. You want them to scroll up on your work and know that it is yours. Capture your family, yourself, your neighborhood, set up an indoor studio, or play with food styling. There are so many things you could be shooting right now. Photography is a skill that needs to be exercised. Let those creative juices flow.
Bonus- if you have the time create a course or pdf you could sell that would help your followers. There are people out there that are dying to learn from you. Yes YOU! Create a pdf for them or a full course. Come up with something that solves a problem for them and then solve it.
Now quit reading my garbage and go do something that will actually benefit your business!
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