5 Reasons You Don’t Need an Employee

Sometimes as business owners it feels like we have so much to do and not enough time to get it all done. Wouldn’t it be easier to have an assistant or an employee to make sure all the little things are completed?

I hear it all the time. In order to grow and make money, you HAVE to have an employee, or at least a virtual assistant.  But to be honest, you really don’t need one and I’m going to give you 5 reasons why.

Scheduling Software

For service based businesses, I really appreciate having a scheduling software such as Acuity. It’s such a huge time saver.  You don’t have to spend time sending reminder emails, requesting contract signatures, or even tracking down invoices.  It’s one of those set it and forget it things. All you need is the scheduling link to embed on your website and send after consults. It’s like your own receptionist or employee.

Automatic Payments

For those of us who take payment plans for our services, it can be such a headache trying to track down those payments.

By the way, if you aren’t taking payment plans, you definitely should consider it.  I’ll go through why in another blog post.

There are some accounting softwares that take automatic payments. With this, payments are automatically charged on a specific days.  So instead of tracking down invoice payments, sending email after email… or the alternative, never getting paid, you get paid automatically.

Automated Marketing

In about 10 hours a month, you can batch out your marketing so that the rest of the month, you only have to work on tasks that actually bring in money.

In my course, 90 Day Dream Biz, I show you exactly, step-by-step, how to automate all of your marketing, from socials, to your website, even your weekly newsletter/email blast.  I even help you learn to write quickly and effectively for SEO because I know that’s a struggle for many.

One more thing, if your website is set up to convert, you’ll save so much time. With a high converting website, you won’t need to spend hours and hours doing free consults with clients where only half actually book a session.

When you have a high converting website, clients book automatically, especially after going through your nurture email sequence and reading through past blogs(all of which is covered in 90 Day Dream Biz).

Batched Workflow

This is the biggest time saver. I categorize all of my monthly tasks…every single thing I have to do in my business… and batch them out. Below you will see my three categories and how I categorize them.

• Production Days
  • Sessions
  • Culling
  • Ordering Sessions
  • Album Design and order
• Marketing Days
  • Social Media
  • Blogging/Email List
• Admin Days
  • Accounting
  • Session Check

I schedule everything out each month so that I have a plan. Yes, sometimes things change, but this is how I stay efficient with my time. I never spend precious time trying to decide what the heck I should be concentrating on at each moment.

It’s also proven that most people are more productive if they have one thing to concentrate on. If you’re constantly trying to do all the things, you never get anything done.

Batching out your work will help you stay on track so you can get back to spending your time doing what you really want to do in real life.

QuickBooks Accounting

Until recently, I was a huge fan of Successware. I still think it’s amazing for photographers, but I noticed I wasn’t using it to it’s full capabilities.

I decided to switch to Quickbooks and have been so thankful for the automations and specifically the reports.

Before, my accounting days required about 3-4 hours of undivided attention.

Now, I can finish in less than 30 minutes.  And that includes going through all of my reports to make sure I’m on track and still meeting my goals. Quickbooks does have a bit of a learning curve, but once you have it figured out, it’s so easy and automated.

Have you figured out anything that’s automated is my favorite?

Bonus: Contractors rather than employee for the minimal things you need.

And here’s a bonus reason you don’t need an employee in your business.  You can hire contractors as necessary.

I personally love contractors. They typically specialize in whatever service you need them to do, which means you won’t have to train them.  They not only know what you need them to do, they typically do it better than you could anyway.

And the best part is that you won’t have employee taxes to pay, health insurance to provide, etc. Win/win especially while you’re still growing.

So what can you hire out?  Well, here’s a list. 🙂

• Retouching
• Album Design
• Blog writing
• Email newsletters
• Social media
• Bookkeeping
• Email support
• Graphic Design
• Web Design

The list really is endless.  Contractors are so handy, and like I mentioned, they specialize in what you need them to do, so you can grow faster.

Conclusion

Remember, in your business your number one goal is to prioritize profit. I understand that sometimes it’s more fun to work with someone, but is that going to be profitable? Can you automate the things an employee would do?

If you set up these things now so that you’re efficient in your working hours as your business grows, you’ll not only make more money later, you’ll have time to spend doing fun things as well.

And if you want an exact roadmap to implementing all these things, be sure to check out 90 Day Dream Biz Inside, I give you the exact roadmap to a 6 figure studio that requires less than part time hours. 🙂