10 Things Small Business Owners Can Do In The Off Season

 

How do you set goals and know what to invest in as a small business owner? If you photograph weddings or engage in other “seasonal” work, the impending “off season” can be both exciting and terrifying! Photographers typically spend time and money investing in their business and in education to improve their skills, but no one really tells you WHAT that entails. Until now - here’s 10 things that small business owners can do in the off season to push their business forward!

That question of “what” is one that nearly every photographer thinks about at the beginning of the year once the Holiday hustle has died down and you’re left with more time to work ON your business with less things to occupy your time IN your business.

I’ve always been a person that is internally motivated and a bit of a perfectionist, and I habitually feel guilty if I’m not “doing” something or producing something. Setting specific goals is very daunting and feels rigid for me, in part because I can’t directly control my consumers’ behavior, and also because I will feel like a total failure if I don’t meet those goals. My motivator is fear more often than not, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing if you learn to set loose goals and have a whole lot of grace for yourself.

Instead of buying the cute paper planners for my daily, weekly, and monthly goals or and making trendy graphics for a vision board of 3 and 5 year benchmarks, I’m a “list it all out on my phone” type of gal. I have a master “ideas” list in my phone and every time I’m feeling uninspired or am at a loss for what to do next, I can pull out that idea list and start DOING.


As long as you’re making one small step a day towards progress, it’s enough.


Your list of ideas will look very different than mine, but to get my brain in the right mode to make business “goals”, aka think the next project I want to work on, I ask myself things like:

  1. What do I feel like my weakest skill is? (invest in education in that category!)

  2. What part of my workflow is the most time consuming (then work on streamlining or automating it!)

  3. What’s something I dread with my business? (Network with others to learn other possible ways to do things!)

  4. What can I outsource? (aka what’s taking up so much time that’s not something specific to YOU completing!)

  5. What’s costing me the most money? (research alternatives!)

  6. What’s a question that customers ask me over and over again? (work on clearer communication!)

  7. What is my competitor doing better than me? (reach out to them for a mentor session!)

  8. Am I reaching the customers I want to? (If not, switch up your branding or blog with those specific customers in mind!)

  9. What’s something I can invest in to make my product better? (is it new gear? Maybe an educational course?)

  10. What’s a resource or platform I’m not using yet, and is it feasible to incorporate it into my workflow? (Pinterest, Instagram reels, etc)


Of course there’s the daily tasks for any small business owners like taking care of clients, producing product, posting on social media, etc. but this list will help you with those projects both big and small that move the needle in the direction of progress! Here’s some things that I complete every year that are on my project list:


  1. Branding

    • Update any digital or printed materials with new product shots

    • Get updated headshots

    • Take the time to update any color, logo, or text changes to your brand across EVERY platform (Facebook, website, google, linkedIn, Instagram, email signatures, etc.)

  2. Website

    • Update your website with new images

    • Update your pricing, packages, etc.

    • Go through your website with “customer eyes” and make sure everything is organized with clear “call to actions”

  3. SEO

    • Blog. Just do it.

    • Brainstorm a list of topics for blogs

    • Add alt text to all of your images to help with SEO

    • Add page titles and descriptions to all pages that are SEO friendly

  4. Data Collection

    • Figure out what months have the most leads, most sales, etc. (This can be helpful for planning out what time of the year to invest into paid marketing)

    • Conversion Percentage: Do you know the percentage of “fans” that you convert to clients? Track how many leads against how many bookings to get a conversion percentage! Aim for 30% or more!

    • Raise your prices! If most of your sales are for your most expensive package or product, then it’s time to raise your prices! Look back through your sales to figure out the percentage of sales each price point is bringing in.

  5. Financial Workflow

    • Research options for tracking your expenses easier (I recommend a business credit card linked to accounting software to make it automatic!)

    • Get organized for tax time! Research a reliable tax professional to help you get the most out of your money.

    • Pay yourself! Develop an easy system to pay yourself from your business income (A business checking account and a personal checking account with unlimited transfers back and forth helps BIG TIME!)

  6. Social Media

    • If you hate doing it, learn how to batch-post automatically with services like Later.com

    • Brainstorm a list of reels ideas that aren’t cringey and feel like “you".” (and it’s OKAY not to do reels. It really is.)

    • Plan a monthly photoshoot of products or create an exporting system in Lightroom for when you edit photos so you can build up content to use on social media over time.

  7. Network

    • Reach out to someone in your field that you admire to just get coffee and make a new friend!

    • Join Facebook groups for your expertise area to learn new skills and ideas, or just to meet people to understand and encourage you!

    • Get together with other small business owners in your community to learn how you can all support each other!

  8. Client Communication

    • Start collecting emails in a Google Sheet for an email list!

    • Brainstorm ideas for and pre-draft email newsletters.

    • Do you send the same emails out over and over again? Make it a template!

    • Create and/or tweak your contact forms to collect ALL the info you need and also to pre-screen your clients! (It’s absolutely okay to require clients to specify their budget, and it’s absolutely okay to say you’re unavailable if their budget is way too low)

  9. Education

    • Ask your mentors or peers for resources that they used to get where they are.

    • Offer to shadow or assist other professionals for free to gain on-the-job skills.

    • Buy my course! (But seriously, we cover SO MUCH of these things in detail!)

  10. Define Success

    • Ask yourself what you REALLY want to get out of your business? Is it a number? A lifestyle? A state of mind? Get specific so you know when you are achieving it!

    • Figure out your monthly personal living expenses + your monthly business expenses to see just how many weddings you have to book or products you have to sell to meet your needs. (My finance planning tool can help!)


I’ve spent 10 years completing project after project, making and testing systems, and figuring out ways to automate everything to make my life easier and my business more streamlined. I’ve had so many people ask me about how I did certain things along the way, and I am always happy to help, because I definitely would not be here myself without the help of others and the audacity to ASK them! If you’ve found this information useful, I promise you it’s just the tip of the iceberg of what I can offer you as far as help! I spent two years putting together an online course to help small business owners just starting out have the knowledge, systems, and confidence to grow their business and “catch up” to the rest of the industry. If that sounds like something you want in on too, you can click the photo below to check out the course!


 
PhotographersJill Stiffler