Katrina’s Teen Team Journey...Part 4

OMG! Can you guys believe we are self quarantined for this Covid-19 virus. If you would have told me last month this would be the world's reality, I would have laughed in your face. I was going on my vacation. Heck ya girl needed that vacation. I wanted to soak up the sun on a carribean island with my boo and get a few shades darker. After sitting in my feelings for a weekend and eating all the things. I’m now back to the new reality of what my life is at the moment. My oldest is out of school until mid April, my youngest who is 2 years old is still running around bossing me around 24/7 and to be honest I wouldn’t have it any other way. So many parents right now are in a tough situation. My day to day reality hasn’t changed. My 14 year old is self sufficient so most of the time I forget she is in her room doing her school work. If i'm being honest it's actually somewhat easier for me because I can tell my little one to go see what sissy is doing and then have a good 15 minute break to myself. Hopefully neither one of them figures out that trick because I do it everyday! Maybe even several times a day! :) 

Ok let’s talk photography because that is what you are really here for. March was supposed to be sharing more images with my model team from their shoot we had in January. I decided to upload their images into their own galleries. A Lot of the girls and their mom’s had shared those apps right when they got them. A few days after I emailed out those apps they did a lot of sharing on facebook and instagram. So I think that was a good call for me to make it drive traffic to my instagram and give me the brand recognition I hoped to achieve.

This month, I was suppose to be marketing for a private shopping event I was hosting April 1st. I really pushed that marketing the first 2 weeks of March. I had people RSVP to the event and then ….. school was canceled and the past few days with everything closing. The store owner and I have canceled the event. We will likely reschedule but a new date is not booked yet. I’m so bummed.

Next month in April, my team was suppose to be having our 2nd hangout. I was really excited about it. But with recent events, it will have to be rescheduled as well. Last year, we did it during spring when the weather started getting nice. We had a pizza party in the studio! I had set up outside games and activities. We will be doing the same whenever we are allowed to leave our houses. When we can start to leave our houses everyone will be wanting some social interaction. In addition to our spring hangout I’m also going to do a popup spring photoshoot! Pop up for my business means it’s a bonus photoshoot that is not one of our planned photoshoots. This is when I can be selective and choose who I want to participate in, have creative control for wardrobe, the whole nine yards. I’m going to want to get out of the house by then so that is going to be my creative outlet. So right now I'm planning from the couch! Once we get the go ahead from our government I will let the girls know.

So last month I said I would talk about numbers and systems! I don’t have some fancy system in place for this.It’s actually quite simple for now. Since this is my first year tracking inquiries and referrals. It's an ever changing document.As I need to change it and add things I do. The purpose for everyone teams has something different for them. In the past my team was a client for the year. If they brought in referrals great if not it was ok. This year I have moved to a referral based team. They need to bring referrals to earn their photoshoot. Right now i’m just using the number program on my mac. I created 2 charts. The first chart has all my team girls and non team girl names. The next column is for referrals names. I list out who they referred to in that column. Then I have a total column. You can add more columns if you have other things you want to track. I have another column for how much they spent. I will fill this out as I start having their IPS later in the year. My second chart tracks my inquiries by month. I want to know how many inquiries I have each month. I would like to know who many of those did I book. A few months ago when I was about to start my team launch and signups. I ran my numbers from the previous 2 years. What I learned was my current senior girls on my team 9 out of 10 signed themselves up for my team. Only 1 was referred to be on the team form that signup list that I had reached out to. This list had probably 25-30 girls on. Some girls were duplicates. That was also another issue. If most of my girls are from the same school. They are going to list the same girls. The previous year was the same thing 100% of them signed themselves up. The reason why this was important for me was for two reasons. #1) I was awarding them for a list of names that they all would have the same names and #2) I used to ask my team girls for a list of girls they think would be a great fit for the team. I would then reach out to those girls myself. Some would come to the meeting, some would signup to come to the meeting but flake and some wouldn't even respond. So many photographers do this and it works for them. My numbers show it doesn’t work for me and my area. Why would I waste that many hours of time when the booking rate just wasn’t worth it. Now on the flip side of that I will say that 1 client booked my top collection so you have to decide if it’s worth the time for yourself. If I seperate money from that client I would say that she has been an asset to my team. She is a talented athlete and I went to almost all her home games to support her. I will most definitely miss having her on my team this coming year. Well friends this is when I normally sign off and let you guys know what we will be covering next month but ya girl has no clue what she will be doing next month if my current plans I mentioned above gets pushed back. I do know I have been doing backend stuff in my business like blogging and spending time on my instagram and insta stories! I usually show up daily on my stories so i’m going to try to keep that going during this time. Only time will tell what I will be able to do next month.