“Show Notes”
This episode is sponsored by Website for photographers. Website 4 photographers help photographers get more leads from their websites. You can get in touch here info@website4photographers.co.uk
This week Sam talks about apps you can use in your business.
Accounting apps
This is a vital part of all of our businesses. This can be done on excel, but this doesn’t give you much business information. The app also makes your life easy in many ways. Once the template is set up sending invoices is quick and easy. The app also gives you key business information in the form of reports. It also makes paying VAT easy. Xero and Quickbooks are the biggest players in town. Zoho Books is an option and can integrate with other apps. There is also Wave which is much simpler than Xero and Quickbooks but has some free features. The free version is great but Sam doesn’t rate the premium version
Project/business management
These are effectively ways to organise your to do lists. We can get overloaded with post it notes, pieces of paper etc. These help us get more organised. They are great for repeating task lists that you can use for consistency with every customer. It also helps with tracking the day to day tasks you need to do. The main apps here are Monday Asana and Trello. These do very similar things but in different ways. They all have free trials, so you can try them and see which one you like. For most photographers the free version of these will do the jobs you need.
CRM
This is a customer relationship management tool. Many CRMS do a wide range of tasks. But, at that core they track all of the people you speak to and every conversation you have had with them. You can click on someone and see all the email, phone call and other conversations you have had with this person. It also allows you to set reminders to help you get back to leads or customers at the right time. Most CRMs also do many other things such as email marketing and landing pages. Marcus uses Studio Ninja which is photography specific. Sam says it’s easy to setup CRMs as as soon as anyone emails you they are entered automatically into the CRM.
There are lots of CRMS. Sam uses Hubspot free version and has done for 6 years. There is also Freshworks and of course Zoho. Sam says in terms of a CRM, a photography business is like any other so Sam doesn’t see how useful a photography specific CRM would be.
Book an appointment app
Marcus brings these up as useful apps. They all do a similar thing. They hook up to your diary and allow people to book appointments. They work well. Marcus uses Calendly and Sam uses Doodle. It does save a lot of time going back and forth organising appointments.
ΑΙ
Sam says Al like ChatGPT is really useful for all sorts of things. For example checking a contract you’ve written, changing a blog into a LinkedIn article, giving you blog ideas etc. Don’t use it for creating content though.
Communication Apps
WhatsApp Business is a great app. WhatsApp is a great way to communicate with customers and leads. It looks more professional that standard WhatsApp and is free. Slack is great if there are several people in your business. If there is just you it’s a waste of time. But if there is several of you it is a great way to organise the communication within your business.
“Show Transcription”
Marcus: Well hello there Sam, how you doing?
Sam: Very good Marcus and how are you?
Marcus: I’m very well thank you.
Sam: Excellent.
Marcus: So Sam I believe this week you’re going to be talking to about apps for your business, is that correct?
Sam: Yeah that’s right, so I mean we have done a show on photography stuff, you know different pieces of photography software, so we’re not talking about software for photography, we’re talking about apps that can help you in your business. Apps and software that you can use in different parts of your business. This episode of Shoot to the Top is sponsored by Website for Photographers. I’m Sam Hollis from Shoot to the Top and Website for Photographers is my business. I help photographers get more leads and so more customers from their website. I do this through SEO and website services, both tailored specifically for photographers. In this business I only work with photographers and as you know from the podcast I spend loads of time talking to photographers and really getting to know the photography business. So if you want more leads and more customers get in touch with me via the Shoot to the Top website, email me at info at website for photographers. Co. uk, that’s the number four, or look for more contact details in the show notes. And now on with the show. Cool so a few different examples, a few different areas, so I thought I’d start with one where a lot of us use apps which is accounting. So, we all have to do accounting—a thrilling area of business for most of us. There are some people who love it, and we have an accounting guest coming on soon, but for most of us, it’s like, “Oh God, I have to do this.” You can do it in Excel or with bits of paper, but you’re not going to get much information about your business; it’s going to be hard to do. Using accounting software makes life a lot easier in all sorts of ways. So, why might you want to use accounting software? First of all, it makes things easier, like creating invoices. Once you have the template set up, making an invoice literally takes seconds; it’s sent automatically. There are features like recurring invoices, so if you have customers on a repeating schedule, you don’t have to think every month, “Oh, I must invoice them again.” You just press go, and it invoices them every month—job done, nice and easy. It gives you good clarity in your numbers because you can drill down into where you spent your money and where your money’s coming from. You can see what’s working in your business, what isn’t, and what you need to change. It provides valuable business information. If you grow enough to need VAT, it can handle that automatically. It works simply: you just press a button, it sends the VAT return to HMRC, and then you just pay it. It’s really simple, making all that stuff very easy. There are a few different options, most of which you’ve probably heard of. The main ones for small businesses are Xero and QuickBooks—they’re the big players in town. Most people use them. There’s also Zoho Books; I mention it because Zoho offers an app for everything. It’s a system where you can add different modules, though it’s a bit of a love-it-or-hate-it kind of app. And then there’s Wave, which isn’t as robust as Xero or QuickBooks but is a cheaper option, worth considering if you have basic accounting needs. Do you use one of them, Marcus?
Marcus: No, what I do is pretty old school—I use an Excel spreadsheet.
Sam: That’s how I started, but I have a lot of recurring customers, so it’s a no-brainer.
Marcus: And within my CRM, there’s invoicing software built into it.
Sam: We’ll talk about CRMs in a minute, Marcus.
Marcus: But QuickBooks can connect to your bank, can’t it? I noticed that some bank accounts offer QuickBooks.
Sam: No, what it does is link to your bank account, so it’s really good. You can see what invoices you’ve sent out, link them to your bank transactions, and see if you’ve missed anything. You can see when things are paid and so on. The two talk together nicely. Xero and QuickBooks are pretty similar in pricing—around $14 or $15 for Xero and $18 for QuickBooks. Wave is a simpler app; some people use it, and I started with it for recurring invoices. There’s a free version of Wave and a premium version that costs around $16, but I wouldn’t recommend it over the basic versions of QuickBooks and Xero. However, if you want something very basic, the free version is worth a look.
Marcus: Is that $60 a month?
Sam: No, $16, not $60. Oh, $16, sorry. Wave can’t link to your bank accounts and other features, but as a basic starter, it might be worth considering. So, that’s accounting. Now, moving on to other apps—project management and business management. There are quite a few apps that are excellent for organizing your to-do lists. We all have to-do lists. We manage them in different ways; some of our desks are covered in pieces of paper, post-it notes, Word documents, etc. However, there are a series of apps that are really good at organizing everything for you. They’re great for maintaining simple task lists because everything is organized and accessible from your phone or desktop, wherever you are. They’re also useful for repeating tasks, which everyone does in their business. You can set up workflows for tasks like managing client photos, ensuring you don’t miss a step or alter your process over time. I find these apps especially useful for repetitive tasks. I use them for my weekly accounts with a checklist of what needs to be done. For new customers, it reminds me of all the onboarding steps. For offboarding, it helps me remember all necessary tasks. You can create systems like this for all sorts of things, ensuring consistency in day-to-day operations. Instead of juggling 43 post-it notes and risking losing some, the software keeps everything organized. The three main apps in this area are Monday, Asana, and Trello. They essentially perform the same function—organizing tick lists—but they do it in visually appealing ways, with various charts and options. They all offer free versions, so it’s a matter of personal preference and finding which interface works for you.
Marcus: I’ve tried using most of them—Monday and Trello, for sure. But you’re not using any of them currently? No, I’m still a bit old school. I use a Bullet Journal where I write everything down. It works for me.
Sam: Fair enough, there is a Zoho version as well just like I say because you can do that kind of Zoho for everything if you want. But yeah, Monday Asana and Trello all have free versions and to be honest as a photographer that’s probably, the free versions probably do everything you want. There are premium versions that can do more so I’ve got the premium version of Asana that lets me do things when I’ve finished a task or you can set up automation so when you do one thing it automatically does other things. It lets me have dependencies so if I’m organising a project it kind of goes you can’t do that until you’ve done that and that affects what happens next and that sort of stuff. But for most photographers the stuff they’re doing there isn’t that kind of projects that are that complex, it’s more isn’t it, making sure every client you’re doing the same thing, you’re doing it consistently, you’re doing it in the right way.
Marcus: Exactly Sam and again as you’re not going to say I do that through my CRM as well that you know yeah it’s got that sort of workflow within that.
Sam: Cool which is what we’re going to come on to next Marcus. So clearly Marcus does have one of these one of these apps and Marcus so he has a CRM and so as Marcus alluded to a CRM does all sorts of things. So first of all what’s it stand for? Customer Relationship Management. So they can do a wide range of things but at their core the real core of a CRM is it’s basically a list of your customers and it tracks all the interactions with your customers. So I can go to one of my customers and I’ve got a really clear timeline that shows me every phone conversation, as long as I put it into my CRM, every phone conversation, every email, everything I’ve done with them, bang I see John Smith. Oh look I phoned him last a week ago we had a conversation about that. Two weeks before he emailed me about that and I replied saying that and you’ve got just a lovely timeline of everything that has happened. So I find that by itself is really useful because email eventually if you’re just using Outlook or something it’s quite hard to follow the flow of conversation with all the replies and everything else it can be quite hard to track what everybody said and go back and it’s easy to lose track of it. So having that in the CRM is really useful and the other really core part of the CRM is reminders. So John Smith says to you great that’s great Marcus give me a shout in a week and you go oh bugger well you’ve just put I put in my CRM bum reminder one week and then the next week it sends me a reminder and I remember to email him like I promised you otherwise we all know what happens to that don’t we. You know the post-it note you stuck at the top of the screen fell off and poor John Smith never gets never gets called back and you don’t get the sale. So for keeping up with what customers have asked you to do for getting back to them when they’ve asked you to for getting back to them when they haven’t and you’re just chasing them up that kind of way if you can see what you last said so I get a reminder I’m going who the hell is John Smith and what’s going on I click on him and I go oh look I said I’d email him about XYZ today and off I go and do it. So that’s kind of the core of the CRM now as Marcus has pointed out most of them then expand and do all sorts of different things a lot of them go into email marketing, a lot of them can set up landing pages and stuff and what sort of things are yours doing Marcus?
Marcus: Yes I mean I’ve got a specific photography one there’s maybe I don’t know four or five that come to mind that are big players in the market. I use Studio Ninja I think there’s Hello Blue there are some big ones have you got the notes?
Sam: Yeah I’ve got some others yeah I’ve got some others I was just wondering what you use yours for Marcus?
Marcus: And it does it for me you know it’s I mean my business is fairly straightforward compared to yours I think you’ve got quite a few businesses going on and it but it works fine for me yeah yeah you know it’s almost set it up and you can forget about it.
Sam: Yeah I mean that’s one it is set up and you forget about and I found one of the nice things as well and I said the emails go through the CRM I’ll put in some logins and then I can go into the CRM and send emails and emails are tracked as they come back into the CRM so everything that is tracked because the first thing I thought when I set one up is this is going to be ages importing all my customers and I never bothered just most of them email you from time to time and as soon as they email you bang they’re in there you know so we built it up almost straight away with no effort. So, yeah, you’re right, Marcus—different brands offer different options. HubSpot is a really good one, and they have a free version that’s brilliant. I’m still on their free version, and I’ve been using it for five or six years; it’s really, really good. Unfortunately, there’s quite a hike to the next level, but their free version is great. Of course, Zoho has a CRM, as we’ve discussed, and there’s Freshworks. There are quite a few options now. Some CRMs also do email marketing, and if you’re using that, you can choose to use your CRM or a completely separate email marketing platform like MailChimp. The advantage of using your CRM for email marketing is that all the data is in one place. When I look at John Smith’s record, I can see when he received my newsletter, whether he read it, if he received a promotional email I sent, whether he read it, and what he clicked on. All that data is in one place, which is really powerful. However, to get that level of integration, you need to pay for your CRM. You can’t do that with the free version of HubSpot; you’d need the premium version, or the premium version of Zoho or Freshworks. So, yeah, they are really powerful.
Sam: Sorry.
Marcus: Do you have a list there, Sam, of photography-specific CRMs?
Sam: The truth is, a photography business isn’t much different from any other business when it comes to CRM needs. People like to promote products specifically for photographers, but in reality, you’re just emailing, phoning, and chasing customers about leads, which is what any CRM is designed to do. A photography-specific CRM might have some unique features, but generally, it’s the same as other CRMs.
Marcus: I’d be a little cautious because sometimes they just add a “photography” label to a generic CRM. I was just looking at Sprout Studio, another big player, and it’s not “Hello Blue”—it’s “Light Blue.”
Sam: It might be worth another show looking at those and comparing them. But, yeah, I would recommend starting with the free version of HubSpot. It’s really good, and I haven’t spent a penny on it in five years, and it’s doing a good job. Cool, yeah, that’s kind of the main ones I thought of. There are a few other smaller areas, but those are probably the main three categories where business apps can really help you.
Marcus: An app that I haven’t mentioned yet, Sam, and you may well bring up, is the one I use the most—a calendar app.
Sam: Yes, so people can book appointments with you.
Marcus: whether it’s for a photoshoot, meeting, or anything else. I use Calendly, and it works really well. Yeah, they’re really useful. I hadn’t thought of those.
Sam: I use Doodle, which is slightly different, but they all do a similar thing—connecting to your calendar and letting people make appointments for whatever you need. They’re great for calls to action, like “Book an appointment now.” It sends a calendar appointment to you and the client, sets up a Zoom or Google call, whatever you need. They’re really good.
Marcus: 100%—there’s nothing worse than going back and forth trying to schedule a meeting.
Sam: It used to be all we did, especially with COVID. Just as COVID started, we all began using Zoom links, and it was endless back and forth. Then, suddenly, Calendly links made it so much easier.
Marcus: I have heard some people say it’s not the “done thing” to require people to find a time in your calendar, but I don’t see it that way.
Sam: It makes life easier. Some people don’t like it, but you can always do it the old-fashioned way. Cool.
Marcus: I was going to quickly mention a counterpoint to what you’re discussing. While I love business apps, there’s also value in just remembering things and staying on top of tasks without automation.
Sam: Yeah, but I can’t remember everything. If it doesn’t go into my CRM or Asana, I won’t do it. I simply won’t remember it. There’s a limit to what you can remember.
Marcus: Maybe that’s because you’re not forcing yourself to remember.
Sam: No, I can’t remember that much. I have too many projects and customers. I’ve got thousands of people in my CRM and 20 projects ongoing at the same time. There’s no way to remember all of that. For instance, if someone asks you to call back in three months, you’re not going to remember that.
Marcus: True, true—that sort of thing is hard to keep track of. But, don’t forget to use your brain. If you don’t use it, it will go to mush.
Sam: This isn’t about not using your brain; it’s about using tools to assist your brain, so you can focus on the important stuff instead of lists of things that aren’t very useful.
Marcus: Yes, exactly. I sound like such a Luddite! Anyway.
Sam: I wanted to briefly mention a couple of other things before we run out of time. AI is very important now. ChatGPT is a brilliant app to have on hand, even if it’s just to make your emails sound a bit better. I use it all the time, for example, to rewrite an email more formally or to tweak a blog, I’ve written into a LinkedIn article. It’s amazing for those little things. It can’t make you a cup of tea, but it can do a lot of other stuff. Yes, it’s really useful for small tasks, like checking a contract under British law or tweaking the wording. It’s amazing. Absolutely. It can also help with communication apps. WhatsApp for Business is a great, free app for contacting customers. It shows your business profile when customers see your messages, which adds a professional touch.
So, instead of it just being a person you have a lot of business information on, you can have things like opening hours, making it look more professional. It also gives you more options and functionality. It’s WhatsApp for Business. I have two SIM cards in my phone: one for personal use and one for business. I have a personal WhatsApp linked to one number and a business WhatsApp linked to another. Business WhatsApp is good, and Slack is also useful if you work with other people. Many photographers don’t, but if you do, Slack can be very effective. If you work alone, Slack is a complete waste of time. However, if you collaborate with others—say you’re working with other photographers, a videographer, or stylists—Slack is amazing. It’s a lot easier to manage than WhatsApp, and I’ll explain why. In WhatsApp, if you’re talking to, say, a videographer and a stylist, you might be discussing a wedding one minute, a different photo shoot the next, and then planning for next year. All of these conversations would be jumbled in the same feed, making it difficult to follow since they’re about completely different topics. WhatsApp just presents one message after another, regardless of the subject. In contrast, Slack is organized by topics. You can have a dedicated project for John and Linda’s wedding next week, where you can discuss all relevant details with your team in that channel. You can have a separate channel for brainstorming ideas for next year and another for a portrait shoot in a month. This way, you can have different conversations with the same people and follow each thread separately. In WhatsApp, trying to manage four conversations in one place is chaotic. We’ve experienced this, and it’s confusing.
Marcus: Why don’t we switch?
Sam: We can do that. I can add you to Slack if you want, Marcus. Let’s discuss that after the show. We are running on time, so I think that’s all the apps I can think of for now. Marcus is usually ahead, but these apps can really help you stay on top of things, stay organized, and remain consistent. As we’ve seen, many of them are free or relatively low-cost. We’re not talking about breaking the bank here.
Marcus: No, that’s important. Brilliant! Wow, that’s good. I’m apt and ready to go.
Sam: Excellent, that’s good, Marcus. And what about the newsletter? Marcus.
Marcus: I want you to talk about that, as I’ve spoken a lot.
Sam: So, if you want to sign up for the newsletter and listen to me even more, you can do so at shoottothetop.com. And why would you want to? Because it’s amazing! You get the podcast directly, plus loads of content from me and Marcus. So why wouldn’t you? Sign up for the newsletter at shoottothetop.com.
Marcus: Yeah, and what I will say, Sam, is let’s get some comments and interaction going so we can hear what people want us to do and what topics they’d like more shows about.
Sam: Cool, that’s brilliant. And the best place to do that, Marcus, is probably the Facebook group, right?
Marcus: Yeah, why not?
Sam: Shoot to the Top Facebook group—link in the notes. I will see you next week, Marcus.
Marcus: Next week, Sam. Take care. Goodbye!
