Should I Outsource as a Wedding Photographer?
I've said this before and I will say it again - it is SO possible for you to make MORE money while working LESS, and having more free time to spend with your loved ones and doing things you enjoy most in life. Today, I will share my top 3 reasons to fall in love with outsourcing that made all these amazing things possible!
How, you may be wondering?
Outsourcing! Honestly, outsourcing has been a game-changer for me personally and my business. That is the number one reason why I'm so passionate about it and I want to encourage you to finally give outsourcing a go, if you want to grow your business and also have more freedom in your life.
From personal experience to crunching numbers, I've put together the top 3 reasons + examples for you that explain why outsourcing is so worth it.
Top 3 Reasons to Fall in Love With Outsourcing
1. You get to make more money
Have you ever thought that outsourcing will cost you too much and you will end up making less money? You're not alone! That is actually the number one reason I find photographers being scared to give outsourcing a go.
I am SO damn excited to tell you that it's actually the OPPOSITE!
Outsourcing gives you the opportunity to make more money. Let me give you a real-life example with my own numbers from my business.
In September 2018, I had 11 weddings booked. Yes 11! There were 5 weekends that month so I had 5 doubleheaders and one Wednesday wedding.
The only reason I took on that many weddings in that month was because I knew I would be responsible for it. Meaning, I would still have a lot of energy to give on all those wedding days and all the couples' wedding photos would be on time because I was already successfully outsourcing my editing then.
So as a result, I made a lot of money that month, for not even grinding that hard (except for the 5 doubleheaders in a row lol).
So let me share with you the real numbers.
I brought in $61,237 in revenue that month from those wedding bookings alone. I wouldn't have been able to book all these weddings if I was editing and culling everything myself because that would have been burnout central.
The cost of outsourcing editing through The Image Salon was $2920. The cost of outsourcing culling that month was $661.
It means that after paying for outsourcing, my revenue was $57,656.
So basically, one wedding booking of $3500 paid for all of the outsourcing and saving me - listen to this - 121 hours that month. That's 30 freakin' hours per week!
I did all the calculations so that I could prove to you that outsourcing really does allow you to make more money and save time.
Here is another calculation:
I would have been working 243 hours that month, which is 61 hours per week, if I was editing and culling everything myself. Instead, I was working 30 hours per week, in the busiest wedding month of my whole life! How amazing is that!?
2. You Get to Focus on Things You Enjoy Most
I'm pretty sure you got into photography because you wanted to shoot right? To create and to document memories for others?
I'm sure you've noticed that as you grow your business, shooting actually only takes up 5-10% of your to-do list. I know this from experience.
We end up wearing ALL the hats and it can feel like we are running on a never-ending hamster wheel full of to-do lists that have nothing to do with actual shooting. We keep lying to ourselves that, oh, next month won't be as busy, I just need to get through this month.
Trust me, I've been there! Burnt out as fuck, not feeling as my best self, relationships suffering and lying to myself that this would end soon. Truth is, I wasn't doing anything about it, so if I kept doing the same actions why did I ever expect different results? It just doesn't add up.
As photographers, we make our money while SHOOTING not editing, or culling or blogging, etc. Let me ask you this - why would you be spending your precious time on $5-$25/hour tasks that you don't enjoy as much when you could be shooting more to bring in more money per hour WHILE doing what you love most? It's a no-brainer for me!
And I'm not saying that all photographers don't enjoy editing or culling or blogging, because I know those tasks can be fun to work on, too! But there is a way to still have a hand in working on those tasks, but for a fraction of the time and for only $5-$25/hour!
This is exactly what I teach in my Outsourcing Made Easy for Wedding Photographers online course! For example, if you enjoy editing, you can still do some pre edits on a wedding and have fun seeing the transformation in the photos, but then send the rest out to be edited and you save yourself loads of time and sanity!
I had a student that had a eureka moment when she took my outsourcing course. She said, "I thought I LOVED editing and that I wasn't going to let it go. I took your course so that I could learn how to outsource other things in my business, but now I realize that I love editing the initial 100 images from a wedding, but the rest really drains me! So, it turns out, I'm going to choose to focus on outsourcing my editing first because that is where I lose most of my time in my life and I want it back."
Do you see the difference in thinking you love editing or only love editing a small portion of a wedding? So pay attention to what your heart and body are telling you! Do you love editing a whole wedding? Or just a handful of photos before you start feeling drained? Just some food for thought.
Or maybe you're someone that LOVES to blog, but you feel like you don't have enough time to make that happen. The whole point to outsourcing is for you to outsource what drains you and keep the things that get you excited and light you up!
3. You Get to Say Bye to Stress + Burnout!
Oh man. This is a big one. If we don't have our health, we have nothing. We can't do the things we enjoy in life with the people we love most if we are feeling low energy, or end up developing a health issue, or we simply leave this planet early because we didn't care for our mental, physical, and emotional well-being.
Health seems to be something that we procrastinate on taking care of because it's so easy to take it for granted. Getting unhealthy takes time and it's hard to feel like we need to change something if we haven't hit rock bottom. But why not be proactive and stop yourself from hitting rock bottom before you inevitably get there?
I had a moment 6 years ago when I realized via seeing myself in a photo that I weighed the most I have ever weighed. After seeing that photo, I looked at myself in the mirror and realized that I was fooling myself and I literally thought I had a six pack for years. But really, I had a bigger belly from all the junk I was consuming and the 12-15 hour days sitting at the computer.
I noticed that I felt less energized, I wasn't spending time with friends, I wasn't even being physically active in sports which was one of my loves before starting my business, so I also lost a sense of who I was! I was no longer connected to myself. I couldn't keep going on like that and I decided that I would get back into movement first because if I wasn't taking care of myself, I would have no energy for others.
Once I was starting to work out 3-4 times per week again, I noticed that each day consisted of literally just work and working out. There was no time for anything else, so I set out on a journey to figure out how to successfully outsource in my business.
Now, after about 2.5 years of trial and error, I have figured out simple + effective systems that I use to help me work less, and make more money! I've genuinely never felt happier and don't even remember the last time I felt burnt out and overwhelmed during a wedding season. It's been so easy and I've had time for myself, quality time with Rory and my health journey is at an all time high with eating like I've never eaten before and being psychically active a minimum 4x per week.
Just to give you an idea, thanks to outsourcing, during wedding season, I work only 30 hour weeks, and that includes shooting! That's like 4 hour work days during the week! And last year in 2019, I brought in $210,000 in revenue! This is so possible for you too!
Some of you may wonder, what do you do with all that extra free time!?
Well, I now have added the education portion to my business that I am SO passionate about and I would not have been able to do if I was still stuck in overwhelm with having my business running me. Now I get to do two things I love - documenting memories AND teaching others how to create more freedom and make more money in your life!
So the education side of my business adds another 10-15 hours per week in the wedding season which means I work a regular 40-45 hour week now, BUT the tasks I'm working on are high revenue-generating tasks, so that means I have more hours to bring in even more income for myself and my family.
Another thing I do with my extra time is I learn A LOT so that I can grow personally and I can grow my business to the next level which is to help as many photographers as possible lead a more free and balanced lifestyle with the people that mean most to them.
But soon my goal is to only work 25 hours per week with wedding photography AND education so that when Rory and I start having kids, we are set with so much time to spend with them! And I see myself easily making that happen for us in the following 2 years.
I'm sharing all of this because I want to show you that if it's possible for me, it's SO possible for you too! Why wouldn't it be, if all it takes a specific series of actions that need to be done and poof, you can have more free time, too!
So those were the top 3 reasons to fall in love with outsourcing! I'd say those are pretty freakin' powerful!
If you're done with the hamster wheel you've been on and want to learn the step by step actions I teach in my Outsourcing Made Easy for Wedding Photographers online course, then I've just opened up the wait list so that you can be the first to know when the course will be coming out in March! It'll be only available in March for a week or two and then the next one won't be available until November 2020 or March 2021. So, if you finally want 2020 to be your most effortless wedding season yet, sign up so you can be in the know! Click here for that!
If you want help figuring out what you should outsource first in your wedding photography business, I've created a quiz for you to help you out! Click here to take the 3-minute quiz. And just FYI, when you take the quiz, along with your result, you'll also get my actual Outsourcing Wedding Workflow Checklist so you can see my step by step process for each wedding!
The off-season is the perfect time to implement outsourcing into your business so make sure you jump on that quiz + free worksheet now so that you can start visualizing how you can make outsourcing work for you!
I hope this helped you. If it did, please let me know by sending me a DM on Instagram (@saramonikaphoto). If you know someone who would like this too, share this blog with them or send them the link to the podcast episode!
Love you guys and thank you so much for reading!
-Sara