Your email list isn’t just a way to sell your products or services, you can actually use it to educate and connect with your audience! In today’s episode, Shannon Vondy joins us to share how you can get started with email marketing and build a powerful marketing platform for your business.
The Business-First Creatives Podcast is brought to you by CRM and Dubsado expert Colie James. Join Colie each week as she discuss how to build a business that brings you joy and a paycheck! From business advice with fellow entrepreneurs to sharing automation tips and tricks, Colie and her guests are sharing industry trends and resources, along with a little bit of sarcasm.
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Guest Bio:
I’m Shannon aka Mrs. Vondy, your friendly neighborhood email obsessed marketer & strategist. My team and I offer done for you email services for busy biz owners and done WITH you services via our Email Club Membership and Email Template Shop.
After being a wedding photographer for 13 years, I also coach wedding vendors and other business owners on how to book better clients and run more successful, profitable businesses.
When I’m not dreaming up emails, or coaching biz owners, you can likely find me binging Netflix while snuggled up with my hubby and my two rescue huskies.
Here are the highlights…
[:32] Get to Know Shannon
[6:20] Pivoting into Email Marketing
[8:46] Email Marketing for Photographers
[13:27] 3 Steps to starting Email Marketing
- Pick a provider
- Build an opt-in page
- Start talking about it and emailing
[14:51] Email Frequency & Content
[17:50] Email Freebies
[19:50] Email Sequences
[22:34] Outsourcing
[29:20] Biggest Fuck Up
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MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
CONNECT WITH SHANNON
Review the Transcript:
Colie: Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Business First Creatives Podcast. My guest this week is Shannon Vondy and she is gonna tell you where she’s located and the unique offer that she currently has that has like reshaped her business. Hello Shannon. Welcome to my podcast.
Shannon: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
Colie: Oh, I thank you for being here. Tell the listening audience where you’re located and what you currently do, because we’re gonna get into your past offers right after.
Shannon: Perfect. It’s a long story. I’ve had a lot of past lives. So I’m Shannon, as Colie said, and I live in Los Angeles, California. And I am currently an email expert and launch strategist, and I am obsessed with everything email. So yeah, we’ll start.
Colie: And so guys, Shannon is not too different from many people that I’ve had on this podcast because I feel like everybody in my world, even like on the business side, Was all a photographer at one point. So I mean, Shannon, take us back to the beginning. How did you start your photography journey?
Shannon: Oh wow. Yeah, this is a whole story in itself. But essentially I moved out to Los Angeles to work in the film industry, which I did for many years. And then I got a little burnt out cuz I’ve been telling people recently that I would, I worked, my last show I worked on, I loved because I, they only would let you work 15 hours a day.
Like they sent you home after 15 hours a day. And to me that was like luxury. So as you clearly burnt myself out on working constantly in the film industry, and so then I thought, well, what else? I mean, I’ve always loved photography. I feel like every photographer says that, but I’ve always loved it since I was a kid, and I never thought I could do it for a profession.
And so I was always old white men, you know what I mean? So it was like never the. Thing that a young girl would go do. And so I just was like, I had a, I met a friend on a set who was like, oh, I’ll show you. And so I just started doing stuff with her and I, one thing led to another as as it does, and I fell into photography.
I think I went in thinking I’m gonna be a photographer and not thinking I’m gonna be a business owner. That was, Definitely a fun learning experience. But yeah, so then I started doing photography. I’ve been, actually, we still do that. We’ve been doing it for 13 years. Me and my husband, he joined me in 2011, but we got married in 2014 and that’s when we really became the VDIs our, our photography business brand.
Colie: I mean, I feel like we could have an entire episode on working with your husband, cuz I have no idea what that’s like, but I’ve heard from others. So we’ll save that for another time, Shannon, but, but in the beginning of your photography career, were you focused on one particular genre or were you like a J Of all traits.
Shannon: I did a little bit of everything at first, and then I really kind of honed in on weddings and families and or newborns. So I did kind of a little bit of both, but I, when I first started, that was kind of like everyone, all the like experts would tell you, I, I did air quotes For those who are not watching, all the experts would tell you that you need to niche down, have.
Sit, just do one. And so like, I’d always kind of try to do, but I’m never, I’m just a multi-passionate person. I’ve never been one person to just do one thing. So yeah, so I did a little bit of everything at first, and then I really kind of honed in on the weddings and babies.
Colie: Well, I mean, I honestly tell a lot of wedding photographers. I think that doing weddings and the stuff that comes after is great from a marketing perspective. Like you bring these people in for these like high dollar weddings depending on your price point, and then you don’t have to convince them of your value.
When they start having babies and to get annual photo sessions, because you’ve already built that relationship with them, they’ve already charged you whatever you are currently at for your price point. And so at that point, like the newborn photography just seems cheap. If they paid you a good amount of money for the wedding, so like I don’t begrudge anyone who wants to do you know, as you said, describes themself as like multi-passionate because I do feel like there is a lot of value in marketing yourself and you know, keeping people within your client hemisphere and like all of those good things. Because of course the hardest thing about running a business is finding the clients and bringing them in and continuing that like train of bringing people into your business continuously.
So, I mean, I
Shannon: them the value. I feel like that’s a huge one that we tend to forget is showing people the value of your services.
Colie: Well, how many weddings do you and your husband still do?
Shannon: So right now we’re doing about five-ish a year, and that is literally like last year. We did about 10, I think, and then we were doing up to 20 before. Covid.
Colie: Mm.
Shannon: Um, so we were doing quite, that was a full-time job for both of us, for many, many years. And then obviously when the pandemic hit, things changed.
But yeah, so now we’re doing about five-ish a year. And then we’re at a little bit higher price point, which is really cool when you look back, a little baby, little baby business owner, me.
Colie: Yeah. I mean, and I’m just gonna ask you one more question about this before we take a pivot, but like, where are the majority? Like if you’re only doing five, Are they referrals? Are they finding you on Google? Like what is, where are they coming from and are you still marketing for them?
Shannon: That’s a great question. We, I’ll say we lightly market. I don’t market it as heavily as I used to. But yeah, so most people find us usually referral through either another vendor or we’re on a lot of venue lists around here too, cuz we just have been doing it for so long. Or, you know, friend of a friend kind of thing.
Like we have like a maid of honor from another wedding, you know, those kind of things. So it’s, it’s usually referral, but. Yeah, for a while there, Google was kind of a source for us, but mainly I think word of mouth is just king, you know?
Colie: it. Okay. Well thank you. I mean, I just thank you for indulging me, cuz I know I didn’t bring you on here to talk about that. But any opportunity that I have to ask people about their marketing in the same way that eventually we’re gonna talk about your outsourcing, like those are just things that I ask everyone.
But Shannon, you are here to talk about email. So where does your love for email come from and how long have you moved into the space of being like an email marketing.
Shannon: Yeah, so that’s a crazy journey. But yeah, so essentially when. 2020 happened. We had our calendar just completely wiped clean like most people. And so luckily I had an online friend who, she had two little kids at home and she was an email marketer and she was just, didn’t know what to do. She had so much work, you know, and she was like getting busier cuz people are like freaking out.
And so I was like, well, what can I do? How can I help you? I have nothing on my calendar. So I started helping her. Um, and she would just throw me stuff and I would just kind of fell into the fire, you know, as it. Like, all right, let’s go. And then I thought, wow, this is, as I started to learn more about email marketing, I went.
It’s interesting. I’ve used it before, but in, I never did it this way. I never really understood what I was doing. So I thought, you know what? I’m gonna try it again. I’m, I’m gonna just, let’s start out an email. Let’s like do a print sale. And so I, I did a print sale and my very first email made $2,600 and I was like, Oh, this is what everyone is saying when they say you need an email list.
Like I had never dreamed how much money, time, and freedom email could give me. Um, but I didn’t believe it. Right? I was like, this is too good to be true. This has gotta be fake. So a couple months later I did another sale and I made another like $1,400. And at the end of the year, I think I started emailing in like July.
And by the end of the year I made like $13,000 just from email sales. And I was. Okay. This is dope. Do other people know about this? And why is no one doing this for small business owners? Like, why is no one offering to outsource this and do this for them? I mean, maybe there were people doing it, but not as, I couldn’t find people doing it or offering it that often.
So I light bulb. I’m like, why don’t I, why don’t I offer this? I love it. Like, and I’m so passionate about it, so let’s do it. So I started a whole nother business.
Colie: Let’s, let’s talk about photographers since, I mean, I’m still technically a photographer and you’re still technically a photographer. You already mentioned print sales and I feel like that’s like where all photographers think they’re like, oh, well, I should email and offer people a sale. But do people always have to like, what are the other kinds of emails that we should consider sending as a photographer?
And do you have a recommended like frequency of how often we should be emailing our actual photography client list?
Shannon: So, yeah, that’s great question. And multifaceted answer, but essentially I think. Yes, we can email them. We, I think that’s what I used to think is you only email when you have something to offer. And that’s why I wasn’t extremely successful with it, because I’d be like, oh, we have mini sessions or whatever, and people are like, okay.
Like they, I don’t even know what they were, were thinking, but I imagine they were thinking like, why should I care? You know, like, I don’t need one right now. Or maybe next year or whatever. Right. They didn’t see the value of having a session. And so even past clients, like, they’re like, ah, I had one last year.
Like, you know, whatever. So looking back, if I could, if you’re at this level of photography or if I were speaking to me at this level of photography, I would’ve. Emails prior to my, release of the dates for like a mini session or a family sessions or whatever, right. And educate them, give them ideas of like why they need a session.
Their kids are growing up, what they could do with the pictures afterwards, like paint a picture for them through these emails. And I would probably break that into several different emails of just like a little sequence of just giving them education value, things that will help their lives and make.
You know, make things better and easier for them and like how easy it is to book a session. And also letting them know like how busy you get, right? Like, Hey, I have a wait list. That’s another really great strategy. Again, I could go, I know I’m kind of throwing things out here so we can go into some of them if we need to.
But essentially just like, I think we under think what our clients need to know because we already know so much of it and we’ve told so many people things over and over that we like forget. There’s still people that don’t know basic things that like we could share, right. Ways to get a better session.
I think that’s a reason people don’t book sessions is it’s so stressful for them to like, get their kids to a location and get them dressed and make them look good. I mean, I can only imagine how I’ve been without children at a session. So I can only imagine what it feels like to bring, you know, small humans and trying to get them to behave in front of a camera.
So I think giving those things to people ahead of time makes ’em go, oh, this is easy. This is fun. I can do this. I can book this. I, I want this. You know, and I think that we, again, I think we tend to under think what value our clients actually need from us.
Colie: Absolutely, and I think, I mean, this is probably because of the weekend that I had, but I think that if you send an email that totally normalizes children having tantrums at sessions, I think moms would feel much better. Imagine listening audience. Imagine Colie at the hospital yesterday trying to do a fresh 48 with a mom who just delivered her fourth. And the other three children are six, four, and two.
Shannon: Oh Lord.
Colie: She is gonna think I’m a miracle worker. I mean, guys, if you were there, and I really wish that someone had been there, like recording it with a phone. Her children were doing literal laps in the hospital, hallway, hallways. And I still managed to get, you know, pictures of the kids, pictures of the parents alone, picture of the baby alone.
If you let your clients all of the things that can happen, and you let them know that you are the professional that is gonna make them a lot more likely to take you up on your mini-session offer your full session offer, whatever it is. But if you are only contacting them when you have something to sell them.
That is the fastest way to get anyone, and it doesn’t matter what kind of service you have, that’s the fastest way to get anybody to tune you out. If all you are doing is sending emails to sell, sell, sell.
Shannon: Yep. Exactly. And that’s, I mean, we’re all guilty of it, right? We don’t know what we don’t know. I literally did it too. Like everything I tell you is probably mistakes I have made along the way and learned from. So yeah, I, it’s, and I know the other thing I think people get in their heads too is it seems like it’s gonna take up so much time and they don’t have extra time.
Like, I get it. I literally eat, breathe. Slept photography for a billion years and didn’t have a life, and I get it. Like I didn’t think I had time for another thing, but if I could go back and give one piece of advice to myself, it would’ve been learn how to do email efficiently and quickly because it will benefit your business like beyond your wildest dreams.
Like the amount of freedom I have found from email marketing. I, I like, I’m gonna cry if I get to, is it’s so how much I used to struggle and what I know now is just, I just wish I could go back and tell myself this.
Colie: So
Shannon: if you’re there, do it.
Colie: let’s talk to them though. So, um, and I know Shannon, I’m putting you on the spot, but like, if you had to give photographers three steps to like start doing email marketing next week, what would those three steps be?
Shannon: Easy. So you just need to pick a provider, like whatever email provider you can use anything, literally anything. So I like not, not Gmail, but you can use Flodesk. That’s the one I think you used that too. Great. Colie, or you have
Colie: photography clients.
Shannon: Yeah, you could use Flodesk, which I like because of the pricing and it’s pretty, and as photographers we like things to look good, so I like it cause it’s really easy to put your brand in it and make it look good.
That’s actually what got me into doing email more, was finding Flodesk and realizing like, oh, I can make these emails look nice. Cuz I used to use MailChimp and I, I love MailChimp, don’t get me wrong. I love MailChimp. A lot of people I know dog it. It’s fine. You can have your own opinion on it, but it is, you can, I can make, I can make MailChimp look like Flodesk.
So, so it’s, you can make it look good if that is where you are, or you can use other things. I like mailerlite. That one’s also really affordable. Convert Kit is another one people really like. So yeah, I say pick a provider, just pick one. You don’t have to go crazy. You can always switch if it’s not the right provider for you.
So just pick one and get going. And then I, after that, just. An opt-in page, like some kind of form for your couple to fill out that has their name and email. That’s all you need to collect. First name, email. And start talking about it. Literally just start talking about it and start emailing. I know you asked me too, I didn’t get to answer about the, frequency.
I like to email weekly if that’s too much for you. I mean, you don’t have to do weekly also, here’s the thing, you don’t have to email. Only about photography. You could send them cool things in your neighborhood. You could send them, things you’re like finding that are helping you do things around your house.
Like think about what your people do, right? Like they don’t need just stuff about photography. I used to send like chocolate chip cookie recipes. Or like yoga I liked. So like you don’t have to have to make it all about business. It can totally be personal and it’s another really, I know this sounds crazy, but a really fun way to connect with people because you’re coming in their inbox and you’re giving them.
Things were free, like, and they are choosing to be there. That’s another key, right? So again, if weekly is too much for you, that’s okay. I’ve had people do of every other week, or I’ve had people do monthly. I wouldn’t do less than monthly because what’s the point really? Like people are gonna kind of forget what you are, what you.
Yes, exactly. Now, when it comes to my clients, I don’t always email them regularly unless they get on my Mrs. Vondi email list. So I, but I do keep them in my database. So when I do run a print sale, I email them, and that’s kind of just like a, a written agreement, an unwritten agreement I should say, that we have of like, they didn’t opt in to get weekly emails, so I’m just gonna email them like about sales and stuff like that, when that comes up.
But do make sure they opt in to be on your list and then you don’t even have to worry about like quote unquote annoying them. Like people always worry about that. So just, that’s all you have to do. Find a provider, create an opt-in page and start sharing it and start emailing with it. And that’s it.
Colie: Let’s talk about freebies because I feel like, I mean, it’s one thing to just ask them to get on your email list. How do you feel about freebies or specifically like freebies for photographers? Because I have one, that is a hospital packing list for newborn mothers. So if you’re getting ready to go to the hospital, and I mean, I have people who opt in who don’t even live.
Like, I mean, I know that they don’t live here because I looked them up and I’m like, oh, those people are nowhere near here. But I mean, I have a really insightful list that tells them all the things that I think that they should have ready in their baby bag, because that is one of the things that I stressed over when I was going to be a new mother.
And so like, give me a ballpark, Shannon. Do most of the photographers that you know have a freebie that’s related to their offers, or are they only asking for people to just joinin the email?
Shannon: That’s a great question. I feel like most, I mean, I don’t know, maybe it’s like 50, 50 people having it and not having it. I don’t. You have to have one. So if that’s gonna like hold you up from starting an email list. When I first started I literally just said, Hey, I’m gonna start an email list. You wanna get on it?
And I got 50 people. I mean, it took me a few weeks to get that many people on it. I literally got two, like the first time I started talking about it and my email friend said to me, It’s tumor than you had yesterday. So it’s like, just start somewhere. Don’t let something hold you up. But if you have the capacity to create a freebie, I think it’s a great way to grow your list.
I think it’s a great way to show that you have some value to offer. But something I see people do too is they just start something they think people need and they don’t necessarily think about the outcome and what they’re trying to do with it. Cuz you really wanna think about who you’re attracting, right?
So for you that’s a perfect freebie because you do wanna attract more new moms who need help and.
Colie: their babies.
Shannon: Yes. And want photos. But I’ve seen, you know, like, you wanna think about where is your ideal client at, right? So, For you, giving them something to say what to do at three months old would probably not be ideal because they’re gonna come in too late to where their pain is.
Right? So you’re wanting to hit them before they go to the hospital because they’re gonna go, oh wow, you know what? I got that email and like, Maybe I should have photos, and I’m sure you have a little sequence of like why you might want photos in the hospital and all of this kind of thing, like guiding them towards your outcome.
So that’s when, when I build a freebie, I think about what do I want people to do at the end of this sequence? Because usually when you do a freebie, you send some emails of a sequence of emails. So I always try and think of it backwards, like, what do I want people to do after receiving this? And I think that will help you come up with something that will be I for your.
Client.
Colie: Let’s talk about that sequence. You said the magic word. So when someone opts in, You don’t just stick ’em directly on your list, guys, because it will just come as a shock if they sign up for your emails and they forget who you are. If it takes a week or two to get that first email, y’all, they have forgotten that they even signed up for your email.
And then you run the risk of them immediately unsubscribing or even worse, marking you as spam. So Shannon, what goes in a welcome series and how many emails do you think it should?
Shannon: So it depends. I know nobody likes that answer. But I would say I usually build them about five emails long. You could get away with a three email sequence. Two, depending on what you’re doing, what your goals are, um, and what your offer is. But in general, I find five is usually kind of a magic number for me.
Again, you could add more too. So like if you realize you need. Seven emails to like get all the information across that you wanna get across. So that’s, that’s what I think about. Right. What do people need to know before they will take the action you want them to take? So what did they need? If you wanna book ’em for a wedding, what do they need to know about you, about your business, about.
How you are going to serve them. That’s the key, right? How is it, how does it benefit them? They don’t really care about you. Sorry. But they don’t like, I wanna be rude, but like, they don’t care that much about you so much as they wanna know why you are the right photographer for them, why your photography or whatever services you offer are right for their lives.
How is it going to make their lives easier,
Colie: Mm-hmm.
Shannon: blah, blah, blah. Right? So, Like I said, I kind of like a five email because the last one is usually one that I’m just kind of pushing the sale. Like here’s what I have to offer new you on it,
Colie: Mm.
Shannon: and then I’ll kind of use the other four. The first one is usually the delivery of the freebie.
I don’t go too crazy in that email. Some people do, some people like to put a lot in there cuz they say it’s quote unquote the most read email, which statistically is probably true. but I find people, it’s the most opened email. I’ll argue it’s not the most.
Colie: email too if they’re clicking to get the freebie, but we actually don’t know how much they read. I’m with you, Shannon.
Shannon: Yeah, exactly. So I usually keep it kind of brief. Maybe I’ll put a little bio in there just in case they like, wait, who is this person again? but like, I don’t go crazy. It’s just like, get your, they just get your freebie and get out usually.
Colie: Mm-hmm.
Shannon: And then the other three emails I use to deliver value or like your f.
Flow, I’m sure your sequence of email, you’ll notice email. People use the same names for different things, but your sequence of emails, I imagine is, you know, Hey, have you thought about photos at the hospital? And then you say like, the benefits of those to them. And then like another email is probably like why they should book now, or something along those lines.
Right? So it’s like kind of just guiding them toward a purchase or a sale with you.
Colie: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. All right, Shannon, I’m gonna ask you a question that I ask everyone, which is about outsourcing. Technically, there’s another question that you know is coming, but like I have started asking everyone about their outsourcing. Because believe it or not, there are still people in my audience that aren’t outsourcing things in their business or they just, Ima at least the photographers are like, oh, I, I don’t, I already outsource my editing.
What else is there to outsource? So what do you outsource in your business? Either on the photography side or on the email side?
Shannon: Okay. So I feel for anyone who’s not outsourcing, cuz this was me for far too long in my business, I, I don’t know what it is about the photography wedding industry space that we like tend to think. We’re never gonna make money again, and like we grip it, like it’s going to like leave and never come back.
So I was the same way. I literally, I didn’t even outsource editing for so, so long. So I, if, if you are this person, I get it. But please, please outsource because, It is life changing. Life changing. And man, that’s probably another piece of advice I’d give baby me anyway. So I outsource editing, especially for weddings.
I do tend to do my own portrait sessions, but mainly because I’ve sort of set up a system now that I can get through those extremely quickly. But that’s also come from 13 years of taking photos and. You know, but I do sometimes consider outsourcing those as well. And then I also have a whole team running my email club side of things.
So, my email club business, I have, a va actually I have my, had my VA for two years. So she came on before we really made the transition. And I, my only regret of hiring her is that I wish I’d hired her sooner. Like,
Colie: Don’t we all feel that way? And Shannon, I’m actually gonna mess you. Pause cuz you’re technically talking about your email club and we haven’t told people that you have an email club. So guys, Shannon has an amazing email club. I am a paying member. Tell everyone what it is and what you get on a monthly basis.
Shannon: Yeah, so, I have my, my email business is called the email club, and so I have, a membership and Colie is in there and I love having her in there. We, we have so much fun in that group, I just love it. So yeah, so it’s my membership and we, we do everything in there basically business wise, but we really focus on emails and.
Staying consistent and so everything included is, we get a private Slack channel so everyone can talk and ask questions cuz running a business is really hard and I felt very alone for very, very long time. And it wasn’t until I’ve met other business owners. And I find, I don’t know if you find this to be true, but when I first started in the photography space, people are a little guarded in with their information and they don’t wanna like help as much as once I found the online world and like I’m like, oh, you’ll just tell me this.
Colie: I just have to ask and I mean, you know, my bestie Kate is also in your email club and so I mean, we do this together. We literally live like 20 miles from each other. But No, I understand. So one of the things that they get in your email club is definitely the community aspect. What else is included?
Shannon: So then we also, every month we do an E-box, I call it, which is subject. Prompts for your emails every month. And it also includes customizable graphics to grow your email list so you can post those on social. I mainly just do Instagram right now cuz we don’t know what’s gonna happen with TikTok, so maybe eventually we’ll figure that out.
And then, yeah, and then we also do, in the membership itself, we give also three templates every month, email templates, so those can be. In any fashion for you can customize them to your own business. The, I feel like everyone in the membership seems to really love those. And then we do a training every month too as well.
So we have a workshop every month. We have co-working days so we can actually implement. Cuz I feel like that’s part of my thing is I would join things and then not
Colie: million memberships and then not put any of them into action. So yes, co-working is definitely amazing. Okay. Now that we’ve told everybody what the email club is, I want you to go back to your answer about what your VA does for your email club.
Shannon: Yes. So aside from having the membership as well, we also do done for you services for business owners as well. So we do all of their emails, strategizing, all of that kind of stuff, writing them, designing them, scheduling them, all of this. So she runs a lot of that for me. And. My team also like helps create email.
You know, I have a copywriter who helps write emails and then we just get all of that stuff done. So she’s managing that whole thing. So I know if you are not doing that in your business you may, that may sound like too much. But what’s cool about having a VA and when I first brought her on is she could manage my inbox.
She could. Send, like how many times do we get requests for photos? Right? And it’s just like, we don’t need to be sitting there answering that, right? My VA can do that, so she would do those things for me. but yeah, now, now she kind of does a little bit of both and it’s life
Colie: I mean, but don’t you feel that way because I will say like my virtual assistant, Sarah, like she does so many different things and I feel like I have talked to a lot of business owners where they initially hire a virtual assistant for like something really basic, like managing my inbox or doing this one thing with my photography clients.
And then as you gain trust with. You give them more and more responsibility and you ask them to do more and more things related to your business. So it is good to hear you say that because it does seem to be like a growing trend inside of my interviews with other business owners.
Shannon: Yeah, she, she’s sent contracts for me before, like, I trust this girl with everything, but we’ve been working together for two plus years now, so, you know, we, we get along and everything’s good there. Like I said, I, I trust my team and I feel so fortunate that I totally trust my team with anything. But yeah, it, like Colie said, it’s it, you can build it up.
You don’t have to just jump in and be
Colie: You don’t have to give everyone the keys immediately.
Shannon: Exactly. Here’s the password to my bank account.
Colie: So what else do you outsource in your business?
Shannon: What else do I outsource? That is a great question. So like I said, I have a copywriter who does a lot of the emails for our clients. I can do those as well, but she tends to do a lot of those. And we have a template shop coming soon. I don’t know when exactly this is airing, so it might be out by the time somebody listens to this.
But we have a template shop coming soon, so a lot of my team is helping with that. Another really great thing to outsource, we’re still. Perfecting, this is your setups for Dubsado or HoneyBook. Those are other really great places to outsource because it’s confusing in there. And if you can get it set up and not have to do as much on, you know, manually, like whatever you can set up automatically, we’ll save you time and energy and brain capacity.
And I, yeah. So those are definitely things I outsource right now. Another thing you could outsource, I’m not yet, is like your social media stuff. So like if you hate it, again, that’s
Colie: Then don’t do it.
Shannon: Yeah. If you hate it, like get somebody else to help you with it or do it for you or whatever, because you’re gonna like, why do stuff you don’t like?
Colie: Yeah, exactly. All right, Shannon, I’m gonna bring you around to the second question that I ask everyone, which is, tell me about your biggest fuck up in your business, what you learned from it, and how you grew from it.
Shannon: All right. I have a couple things I feel like I sort of, hmm. Quote unquote messed up on. But, photo wise, I will say I, when the pandemic hit in hindsight, and again, this is all hindsight stuff I wish I knew, but I feel like we can learn from it now. I wish I had better boundaries and better knowledge of.
Colie: Me.
Shannon: Just everything that was going on. Again, there was no way for me to know these things, but for instance, I had a lot of people like, and I’m sure we all did. If you were in business then, um, just taking advantage or like, I didn’t charge to change dates and I really wish I had because that really, really messed up things cuz we didn’t know, right?
We didn’t know that weddings were gonna basically be rescheduled for two, three years later. And so I wish I had stuck to my guns a little bit more there. I felt bad for people too at the same time, but looking back, I’m like, I’m running a business, not a charity, so I need to charge for the dates that have been taken and I’ve been turning down work and now I’m making no money.
And I, we struggled really hard in 2021 because all of our income came in before, so it was like we’re now working. All of our hours are gone cuz we’re still working. And I wish I had kind of understood that. Again, there was no way to know it, but should there ever be a
Colie: Another pandemic. You’re covered now and No, I mean, you’re giving a very specific example related to the pandemic, but I think creating boundaries like this and then sticking to them is something that everybody in the listening audience can learn from.
Shannon: Exactly. That’s why I’m like, I think we can all learn from like that whole situation because there probably will be a time that either somebody wants to reschedule something, right? Like maybe not even necessarily a wedding, but a session or what have you. And of course we can have empathy and change our rules as they feel correct for us.
But I think overall we have to keep in mind like if somebody books you on a Saturday, you’re turning away other work. And if they then cancel. Charge them.
Colie: Mm-hmm.
Shannon: I think we all get too nervous to upset people like, like what’s gonna happen? They leave you a bad review. Like is that really the worst thing in the world?
And also they’ll be like, one of none. You know what I mean? Like why do we cater so much to these people that like are being unreasonable? You know what I mean? So it’s like, I think just keep in mind that. Again, we can be reasonable if somebody gets sick and whatever things happen that I understand, but if people are just being, you know, people,
Colie: Mm.
Shannon: be a business owner, don’t be, you know, like don’t try and cater to these like, I don’t know.
I’m, I’m not saying it well, but essentially like if you have
Colie: you’re saying it fine, Shannon?
Shannon: Yeah. If you’re, if you have people rubbing you the wrong way, let them go. Like, we don’t need that energy in our lives. If they’re not good clients, like, don’t try and fight it. Don’t try and keep them like, just let them go.
That would probably be one of my biggest mistakes too, is holding onto people longer than I needed to.
Colie: Shannon, that’s actually an amazing place to end because I feel like that is just really sound advice. And just so that you guys know, guys, not everyone’s like me. I mean, and sometimes I struggle with this too, don’t get me wrong. It is a muscle that you will build the longer that you’ve been in business.
So, You know, Shannon and I are not saying that you should like open your business and then immediately know what all of your boundaries should be and have contracts that protect you for like every aspect. Like that’s not a thing. But I think what Shannon and I would both agree on is if something happens in your business and it doesn’t feel good, that is when you sit down and you create a boundary so that that will not happen to you again.
Shannon: Exactly. And we have all learned, that’s how we learned, right? Like we learned from doing, and it’s gonna happen. Mistakes are gonna happen, you’re gonna mess up or you’re gonna have to refund people or whatever. But like, it’s not the end of the world. Like it’s really not, it feels like it in the moment, but at the end of the day, like just dropping that heavy weight of somebody being completely unrealistic and it’s, it’s just gonna exponentially grow your business because you’re not carrying that dead weight.
Colie: Yes. I mean, and it, it makes you have the opportunity to work with someone who’s better. Sabrina Gephardt was on this, podcast and one of the things that she said was, you know, when someone presents you with an offer and it doesn’t feel right, You should not say yes because then if the perfect offer comes along, you will be busy.
You will have already accepted something that doesn’t work for you or your business. So, you know, choose your clients carefully, is what we’re walking away from this with. Shannon, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It has been a blast. Could you tell everyone where they can find you? If they would like to know more information about working with you and your template shop when it launches even.
Shannon: Yes, I would love to connect with you. I basically live on Instagram, so you can find me at mrs dot Vondi, v o n d y. I’m sure Colie will leave that link somewhere for you to find. And then, yeah, feel free to DM me and reach out there. Our website is the email club.co. So if you need email.
Or support with email. I also do email intensive, so if you just need somebody to like talk through your strategy with, let’s sit down and or the membership will be reopening again in May as well. Again, I’m not exactly sure when this is airing, so if that is way late,
Colie: same time guys.
Shannon: perfect. So if that is late, just DM me and we’ll, we’ll chat.
Tell me you found me on this podcast and I’ll help you out. But yeah, so the membership will be reopening again as well as the template chop. So, a lot of fun things. I would love to connect with you. And yeah,
Colie: Ah. Alright guys. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.
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