Seven apps & business tools for pet photographers
Did you know I worked as a studio assistant when I first left photography school? I took that job thinking it would be an amazing opportunity to improve my shooting skills- which it was, but the biggest impact that job actually had on my career, was giving me an understanding of what goes into running a profitable photography business. And a big part of that is systems and tools!
I distinctly remember one particular task I was assigned. My boss asked me to find out how we could move from a paper-form client management system, to something digital. Now keep in mind this was over a decade ago. The countless options that are available now didn’t exist back then. There were a couple of CRM’s like Light Blue and Studio Cloud, but of course, I didn’t know they existed of that they were even called CRM’s! I remember that feeling of kind of knowing something must exist, but not understanding it enough to actually find the details. Anyway- I spent a whole week trying to work this out!
To save you from repeating my experience and losing a week of your time, I wanted to not just share my favourite CRM, but also six other apps and tools that can be incredibly helpful in running a pet photography business.
Studio Ninja - CRM
A client relationship manager (CRM) keeps you organised, and save you time (and money!). It helps you track your client workflow, send automated emails, track lead progress, know which campaigns bring the most revenue and more! If you’re looking to compare all the options, I did that in this blog post, but spoiler alert, my absolute favourite is Studio Ninja. It’s so simple to use, their support is amazing and, with our discount code, it must be the cheapest available (just $10 a month!).
Discount Code: PPPI50
Use the code to get your first year half price.
https://studioninja.co/
Airtable - Part spreadsheet-part database
If you have ever used Google Sheets and wished you could make it pretty and easily visual, then Airtable is for you! All my planning and management of marketing ideas and campaigns are stored in an Airtable base. I even have it connected to automatically post on Instagram. Beyond marketing, you can also use it for budgeting, and lots of personal things too! I just counted my bases and I currently have FORTY-SIX each for a different thing! That’s how useful it is!
Get started with a free account!
Zapier - Connect your apps and automate your tasks!
If you find yourself doing the same task over and over, there’s a good chance it can be automated! If it’s something like sending the same email for invoices to a clients, that will likely be done within Studio Ninja, but if it’s something that would require two apps to talk to each other- that’s where Zapier comes in! For example, you could have Zapier connected to Mailerlite (or your email newsletter software) and also to Stripe (your payment gateway). Then when someone pays you in Stripe for a product named “session fee”, Zapier would recognise that and add a new subscriber to your email newsletter software under the group “Clients”. There are a million things you can connect via Zapier! I literally replaced a part-time employee when I started embracing the power of automation so think about how much time you could be saving if you did too!
Get started with a free account!
Xero - Accounting software
If you’re charging for your photography, then you need to report that to the tax department either now, or soon (once you hit a certain threshold- which varies country to country). Early on, you might be able to make do with a spreadsheet, but pretty soon you’ll have a lot more expenses, and many different payments coming in as your business grows. Your level-up from a spreadsheet is using an accounting software and luckily for us, they are now easier than ever to use.
My favourite feature of modern-day accounting systems like Xero is the built in bank reconciliation which allows you to connect your bank account/s once, and the system will then see your transactions, and assign them to particular accounts according to rules you have set up. For example, you can have a rule that says “any payments to an account with this name (eg. your lab), should be assigned as a Cost of Goods-Printing”. All you have to do is go through every so often and click “ok” to confirm that’s correct, or, make a quick change if it’s not. Then at reporting time, you’ll be able to see exactly how much you spent on printing and so on! Pretty neat huh!
Some other options to check out are MYOB, Quickbooks and Fresh books. Ask your accountant which platform they work with.
Fundy Designer - Album and wall art designer
This drag-and-drop software helped me save 10 hours per album sale! Before Fundy existed, I designed albums in InDesign. It was a tedious task, especially for someone who wasn’t overly confident with the software! Then Fundy album designer was released and with a few clicks of a button, I could design my client albums- in about 12 minutes!
Fundy has since expanded it’s offerings and now offers a full suite which includes a wall art designer too complete with stock rooms- perfect for In Person Sales (or Virtual In Person Sales), if you want to level up from my basic system which just uses Lightroom.
DISCOUNT CODE: THEPETPHOTOGRAPHERSCLUB22
Use the code to save 25%.
https://www.fundydesigner.com/
Canvy - Create Wall Mock Ups
To help turn your website into a sales machine, start showing your Instagram audience that they come to you for wall art and even creating an opening screen for your client slideshows- you’ll want to create wall mock ups! Wall mock ups show your work, on the wall, without having to actually physically print, hang and photograph them! Canvy (not to be confused with Canva), makes that super simple. Simply select a stock image of a room (supplied in Canvy), upload your client images, select a size and framing option, export, and ta-da.. wall mock ups!
Use this link to get your first two months free!
http://canvy.com/voucher/thepetphotographersclub
p.s. You may like to check out this podcast episode which is all about using wall mock ups!
Smartslides by Pixellu - Create client slideshows
Many platforms allow you to create client slideshows- even Lightroom has a built in feature. They all work well, so why introduce a new option you may ask? Well, I found for ordering appointments, Lightroom was great, but to sell or gift a slideshow to a client, or to share it online on my blog, was a bit clunky. I had to find royalty-free music, create the slideshow in Lightroom, then export it (which never really did export with great quality), re-upload to a video hosting site like YouTube or Vimeo and share a link.
Then I found Smartslides and I never looked back! They have music options built it, all you do is select a song, upload your images and voila- a link (with high quality!) is automatically created to share! You can opt to password protect the slideshow, enable downloads or not and more!
Unfortunately we don’t have any discount codes for Pixellu.
https://www.pixellu.com/smartslides/
There are a lot of other tools that I use in my business, but these have made the greatest impact and so I wanted to share them with you! I’d love to know which Apps/Tools you love! Members can share their favourites in the Mastermind Facebook Group, otherwise shoot me an email: kirstie@thepetphotographersclub.com
Author
Kirstie McConnell |
Founder
The Pet Photographers Club
When Kirstie launched her pet photography business in Australia in 2012, the genre was barely a thing. She spent the next years at the forefront of this niche, marketing not just her own business, but the concept of pet photography. Each year she photographed around 100 dogs, cats and horses per year to create wall art and albums for pet-parents.
Now based in Italy, she continues to offer pet photography to her clients back in Australia on return trips, but otherwise spends her energy helping other pet photographers build a business which will allow them to follow their dreams.
Internationally recognized as a leader in the industry, she hosts the podcast, workshops, courses and business events for The Pet Photographers Club which she co-founded.