How long does it take you to package a client gift from start to finish? If I didn’t have labels printed, envelope embossed, boxes stamped, ribbon cut … I cannot even imagine how long it would take me! Probably 45 minutes to one hour for one box after the assembling, writing and everything in between. This is where I had to change my system! In 2013, that was my horrible system. During that time, I was only packaging once every two weeks. I knew 2014 was going to be a different story since I left my full time job fall 2013. That’s when I developed the system of “Package Fridays”. Every Friday, I have built in my schedule that I would package and ship out sessions, gifts, weddings. Say I were in the middle of my busy season and it was Friday, I would not want to spend 5 hours putting together two portrait sessions, one wedding and potentially two gifts! That is a LOT of time out of my Friday when I could be getting ready for my Saturday wedding instead or spending quality time with family/friends or other creatives. However, I still need to stay on top of shipping consistently from week to week so my clients have their photos ASAP. This is where this post comes in handy! 🙂
If you’re like me, I love to spoil my clients with still a budget in mind. With that being said, I save a LOT of money by doing more myself. Example, I emboss my own envelopes, print out my own thank you cards, stamp my logo on my boxes, etc. These are all things that make my brand personalized and luxurious with being mindful of my yearly packaging budget. So think about this … if I were to do all of these things every … single … week … I would eventually dread “Package Fridays” because it is becoming a monotonous job. Not to mention time consuming! That is the last thing you want to want to be doing in the midst of busy season. Imagine running back and forth to your printer to print the labels, then the thank you card … then you have to pull out the stamping supplies and stamp your logo on the box … and thennnnn pull out the embossing tools to emboss your logo on the envelope. You’re office is officially a disaster with all of these supplies and not to mention a scattered mind. That’s not how I would want to go into my weekend!
Last year was my first year doing this pre-package system and I cannot tell you how FREE I felt! I was able to ship out on average 2-3 portrait sessions + one wedding every Friday and still spend time doing other business work before closing down my office for the weekend. HELLO JACKPOT! How did I do this? I took two weeks during my “slow season” and created a system to pre-package all of my portrait, wedding and gift packages. Before you even get to this stage, make sure you know exactly all of the supplies you need for the year based on an average from the year before and what you want to do this year. Purchase ALL of the supplies that will last you until December (maybe except candy … I buy enough until July and purchase another bulk then to last me until the end of the year since it can go bad). After you have all of your supplies, sit down and write out all of the tasks you need to do with these supplies to make it easier for you this year. This is what my list currently looks like (nothing fancy but it gets the job done):
Creating a system like this makes it SO easy to check off these tasks! Just think that you are putting in the time NOW to save time later! Ultimately, you really are saving time over the course of the year. Think about it, you’re only taking out the embossing equipment once to emboss all of your envelopes … that little trip to the box holding your embossing equipment can add up time if you are doing it every single week. Or even pulling up the thank you card design on your computer to print out just enough cards for the week. Save yourself some time and do it all at once so it is ready to go when the time comes! 🙂 I can tell you from experience that this WORKS and saved me last year during the busy season!! I’m finishing up my list (as you can see) so I’ll be ready to go when wedding season hits on April 11th! Dedicate time NOW to save time later and spend time with other business work or quality time with those you love. Happy Wednesday!!!
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