jenandashleyblog.com

Virginia + Destination Wedding Photographers

The JA Breakdown | Client Investment

2.6.13

We’re back for day two of Showit LIVE today at 1pm EST (10am PST!) and we wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone that tuned in yesterday. We hope everyone can come back today because we’re super excited about what we’re talking about!! We aren’t going to give everything away in this post (so hop over and check out the show today! http://www.showitfast.com/live), but here’s a little preview on our Client Investment!

Our Client Experience is one of the things we’re the most proud of. We don’t just take care of our clients, we INVEST in their lives, their marriages, their families and friends. In return, OUR lives have been enriched more than we ever thought possible. We have a special fun project in the works that is starting next weekend, and four of our couples (two who’s weddings we haven’t even shot yet!) will be coming over to our apartment to help out. Not only that, five of our couples will be attending mine and Jeremy’s WEDDING as guests, and one couple is IN the bridal party! That’s truly how much we connect with the people we get to work with. But it doesn’t happen just because we SAY that we “like to be friends with our couples”. That phrase has gotten tossed around a lot in the photography world in the past few years, and although I truly believe a lot of us are living that, I think it’s important that if you tell that to your couples, you mean it.

What does investing in our client’s lives do for us besides give us new friends? We have an army of AMAZING people that shout our name from the rooftops and truly want to see us succeed. They tell their friends, their families, their co-workers and people on the street about us. This has meant that we’ve had incredible couples with incredible weddings without paying a dime for advertising. Has our growth been “slower” because we haven’t done bridal shows or advertised in magazines? Maybe. But our growth has been built on trust. Trust between us and our couples and in turn the trust their families and friends place in when they hire us. And most importantly we ADORE OUR COUPLES. But not only our couples, their families, their friends, their bridal party and their vendors…all because we’ve taken the time to invest in our client’s lives.

Some photographers don’t WANT to be friends with their couples, and that’s okay too. Knowing how you want to operate your business is one of the key things to making sure your business is authentic and truly YOU, which in turn attracts the types of couples you most want to work with. The idea of client investment isn’t for everyone. But we’ve found that through taking time to invest in our clients, we’re much happier photographers. And, we gain lifelong friends that we get to share all the exciting milestones of life with. And that’s pretty awesome.

Oh! And in case you didn’t notice, this launches a new “series” on our blog: The JA Breakdown! We’ve had lots of posts that are geared towards helping other photographers, but we never really had a category or catchy title for it so we thought it was high time we went ahead and did that…hence, The JA Breakdown. This series is aimed at sharing our knowledge of photography with everyone else! We love sharing and truly think that we’re most successful when we’re helping others, so we’re excited for the official naming!- A

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March 20, 2013 - 8:02 am

The JA Breakdown | Best Day Ever Wedding Guide » jenandashleyblog.com - [...] do this in several ways. One, we take a really vested interest in our client’s lives. We make the effort to learn as much as we can about who they are as people, as a couple, and what [...]

The Art of the Partnership | Work Life Balance

2.5.13

We’re going LIVE today on Showit live at 1pm EST (10am PST) (you can tune in HERE: http://www.showitfast.com/live) and today we’re talking about our business partnership. How we got started, how it’s developed, as well as the benefits and yes, many challenges that being in a business partnership entails. For today’s AOP post though, we wanted to focus in on what I consider to be one of the BIGGEST benefits to having a partnership- having an excellent work/life balance.

Let me explain. As photographers, we all know that actually photographing is just one tiny part of our jobs. In fact, I’d say photographing is the SMALLEST part of our job (NOT in importance, but in time). It’s all of the other hats we as photographers are supposed to wear that suck up our time and cause us stress. Marketing, Bookkeeping, Album Design, Packaging, Branding, Sending things in the mail, Writer, Office Manager, Shooter, Editor, Culler, Ordering Products, Correspondence, Blogging, Research, Teaching…. the list is VERY long. And it’s HARD to do all these things alone. Many photographers have begun outsourcing these items to get their lives back, and that’s something we wholeheartedly agree with! If you aren’t good at it, and you don’t like it, and it’s taking up all of your time… pay someone who IS good at it to take it off your hands!

Here’s where a big benefit of partnerships comes in. Since there are two of us, full time, we’re able to divvy up these tasks based on what we’re GOOD at and what we like to do. This means that for us, our outsourcing is very minimal. We can do most things “in-house” between the two of us, which keeps our overhead/fixed costs low. This is definitely very important when you are sharing income with someone! Because we are each responsible for a certain set of tasks, we are able to complete those tasks efficiently, knowing that the other person is taking care of her tasks. For us, this breaks quickly down as follows:

Ashley – Blogging (80%), Editing (50%), Client Correspondence (50%), Website Upkeep/Plus Sites (90%), PASS Galleries (90%) Facebook/Social Media (80%), Shooting (50%), Packaging/Sending Out Goods (25%)

Jen – Bookkeeping (100%), Blogging (20%), Client Correspondence (50%), Websites (10%), PASS (10%), Facebook/Social Media (20%), Shooting (50%), Packaging/Sending Out Goods (75%)

Now, of course that’s not EVERYTHING that we do, but it gives you an idea of how we are able to divide up our time. There are certain times during the wedding season where I am doing “more” work than Jen (when we’re creating client plus sites/PASS galleries during engagement and wedding seasons), and there are times (like tax season right now) where Jen is doing “more” work than me. But that’s okay! That allows us to continue the balance because we know that we’re both putting in a ton of work behind the scenes.

What does this mean for us overall? We have a GREAT work/life balance. I see photographer’s posting all of the time how swamped they are, how busy they are (although I think we need to be very careful to not use busy as an excuse to not do those things we most want to do), how they are pulling another late night editing session and haven’t hung out with their friends in weeks. And I empathize with those folks…I truly do. However, I am so thankful when I read things like this to know that that isn’t our lives. Do we work hard? HECK YES. Are there nights we have to stay up late and crank out a wedding blog post? OF COURSE. But overall, we have been able to maintain a pretty solid work/life balance by dividing up our tasks and keeping our LIVES as priorities outside of work.

If you aren’t in a partnership- that’s okay! I highly encourage you to take a good look at all the things you DO, and pick out the ones that you don’t like and OUTSOURCE. It’s scary at first, it feels like you’re giving up control and that can be daunting. But isn’t it worth it to have precious hours of your LIFE back? Ones you can spend with your family, spouse, kids, dogs, traveling, and experience life outside of your office walls? – A

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Just Awesome Monday | Jen + Ashley on Showit LIVE!

2.4.13

Happy Monday- and GO RAVENS!!!!! Woohoo!!!

We’re super excited to announce that Jen and I will be hosting Showit LIVE tomorrow AND Wednesday! We’re proud to be representing the Richmond SHARE Group (although we’ll be coming to you live from my apartment here in Ptown!) We’re so so SO excited (and super duper nervous) so we’d LOVE to have all of your support over the next two days! The show goes LIVE at 1pm EST (or 10am for all you PST-ers) and you can tune in right here: http://www.showitfast.com/live – you don’t have to be a Showit user to tune in, so hop on over and watch Tuesday, February 5th and Wednesday, February 6th at 1pm!

On Tuesday we’ll be covering “The Art of the Partnership” – how Jen and I got started as a partnership, as well as our top advice for those interested in starting a partnership or already in one. We’ll be honest about the benefits as well as the challenges (there are LOTS of both!). We’ll also be talking about wedding day logistics too, so it’s great for anyone who is working with second shooters as well!

On Wednesday we’ll be talking about our client experience, and how through investing in our clients marriages and lives, we have not only had OUR lives enriched more than we could ever imagine, but we have created a tribe of marketers that go out and sing our praises, helping us book more ideal weddings with ideal clients, all while never spending a dime on advertisement.

We can’t wait to “see” you all over the next couple of days! Make sure to pop into the chat room and introduce yourselves so we know who’s watching! -A