How to Create Systems for Your Worst Days in Business with Sandra Henderson

Is your business prepared for bad days—even those worst case scenarios that we don’t want to think about? In today’s episode, Sandra Henderson joins us to share how she’s set her business up for the worst days in business due to the role her chronic illness plays in her daily life. Listen in as she shares the tools, systems, and boundaries that she’s set up to make sure her business can still run smoothly!

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Guest Bio:

Sandra Henderson is a systems strategist, HoneyBook Educator, photographer, and host of the Keeping It Candid podcast. As a neurodivergent entrepreneur who navigates chronic illness life, she takes a unique approach to utilizing systems, workflows, and automations to help her run two different businesses while still being able to give her mind and body what they need. Her goal is to use that same approach to help photographers and wedding pros create strategic systems for their businesses so they can continue to thrive no matter what life throws their way.

On a personal note, she loves tacos, afternoon naps, all things Bravo, 90’s music, travelling, and spending time at home with her husband, step-son, and two cats!

Today’s episode is brought to you by my Client Hub Template inside the DIY Systems Template Shop. Business owners often have their client information spread across a variety of different tools, making it hard to access the information they need to make critical decisions. That’s why I built the Client Hub Template for Airtable, to take the guesswork out of building your own!

Here are the highlights…

00:25 – Meet Sandra

01:22 – The Importance of Integrity in Business

03:33 – Sandra’s Journey from Photography to System Strategy

07:43 – Managing Chronic Illness

09:44 – The Power of Automated Booking Systems

18:47 – Setting Up Effective Inquiry Workflows

24:53 – The Role of CRMs in Business Efficiency

27:17 – Managing Wedding Dates and Client Communication

28:32 – Dealing with Chronic Illness and Work Guilt

29:44 – Google Calendar for Scheduling

30:29 – Emergency Preparedness and Password Management

31:32 – Optimizing Calendar Use for Personal and Professional Life

41:38 – Task Management Tools and Preferences

42:46 – Mobile Apps and Notifications

Mentioned in this Episode:

Airtable

Dubsado

Calendly

Zapier

HoneyBook

Moody Monthly App

Asana

Connect with Sandra

Website: simplysandrayvonne.ca

Instagram: instagram.com/simplysandrayvonne

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@simplysandrayvonne

Podcast: simplysandrayvonne.ca/keepingitcandid

Review the Transcript:

Colie: Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the business first creatives podcast. Y’all it is an exciting day. I have invited yet another system strategist to come on my podcast. I know you guys know from previous episodes as like, it’s weird. Bringing on people who do the exact same thing that I do, but we all have unique talents.

We all have a very unique perspective when it comes to working with clients. And so I am excited to have this conversation with Sandra today. Good morning, Sandra, and welcome to the podcast.

Sandra: Hi, and thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here. And I totally relate to what you were saying about how, like, it’s kind of weird when you’re both in the exact same space, but I’m coming from the wedding photography industry and there’s a million of us, so I’m very used to having a lot of people that do the same thing as me, but you’re totally right about how everybody has their own approach to doing things, their own style to doing things, and so that’s why I love getting a chance to collaborate on things like this.

So thanks so much for having me.

Colie: I mean, I, I work with wedding professionals, but, and guys, anybody in the listening don’t get offended when I say this, but like, that is like the lowest tier, mostly because I don’t have personal experience as a wedding photographer. And so I always feel like, but aren’t there better people to help you?

Like people who have actually been the wedding planner or the wedding photographer or something in that niche to where they have really knowledge of when they were actually doing the thing. And so I feel like you are a perfect example of that.

Sandra: Oh, thank you. And it’s so refreshing to hear people say things like that, because I think as business owners, it’s really easy for us to really just want to, like, chase the money. We need that money in our bank account. We have bills to pay. We have a life that we want to live. But part of being a business owner is kind of having, like, integrity about who you’re going to work with.

making sure that if you are not the right fit for this client, not just doing it and trying to make the best of it because you want to get paid, but actually sending them to someone who is actually going to serve them better. So I love getting to connect with people who have that same mindset because I think it’s so, so important.

Colie: It is. And I have talked to so many system strategists where when we’re on the initial call, not only am I making sure that the tools that I currently work in are a good fit for your business, but also making sure that like my firsthand knowledge is good for you. Cause I’ve had some people that when they tell me, uh, Oh, that they have like, you know, teams and that they have front facing people in their team who actually work with the clients.

I’m like, okay, wait, no, Dubsado is not what I would recommend for you. So let’s just, let’s take a pause on that. Why don’t you tell me the rest of the things about your business and then we’ll see if I need to suggest a different tool for you and what professional I know that works in that tool that can help you get the most out of it.

Because that is one of my red flags. Working with team members and or I mean working with like clients that have more than three point people. Like there are just certain CRMs that handle that better than others. And so we are going to chat about HoneyBook at some point today.

Sandra: always happy to chat about HoneyBook.

Colie: Yeah. So Sandra, why don’t you tell me how you transitioned into working as a system strategist? I already kind of gave the hint that you were a photographer, but you tell me about your experience and then how you transitioned into helping people with their systems.

Sandra: Yeah, of course. So I started my photography business back in 2013, which seems like so surreal every time I say it. I’ve been photographing weddings for the last 11 years and I’ve had the chance to work in five different countries, photographing more than 150 weddings to this point, which I could not be more grateful for.

I also do family photography, which is really kind of a little bit more where my focus is lying these days. And the reason for that is because back in 2020, I was officially diagnosed with endometriosis, which, without going into a huge, long spiel about what it’s all about, because it can take a while, a very, very basic, general idea is that it’s a chronic pain disorder that leaves you with, uh, Pain and inflammation that you’re dealing with all the time.

And so with wedding photography, anybody who’s listening, you know that this is a very high impact job. And when you’re on your feet and just like on the go and having to socialize and think ahead and all these things that are happening on a wedding day, it really takes a toll on your body. And so the wedding hangover the next day is pretty common for any wedding photographer, but my wedding hangover has started to progress from one day to two days and now it’s about.

And so if I’m doing weddings every single weekend, I only have about one day to myself to actually get anything done and like, I can’t live my life like that. I don’t know anybody who can. So I’ve decided to start transitioning out of weddings, and I’m really focusing my time and energy. on doing family photos and mini sessions.

And then I really started trying to think of if my energy is going to be limited and I’m going to be having to put so much focus on managing my health, I need to find a way to keep my business thriving in the meantime. And so that’s when I really started leaning into systems and automations and workflows.

And I’m lucky that I had this time Like weird lifelong love for organizing. Like back when I was a kid and living with my parents, I would just like organize my CD collection for fun, or like go full ADHD and start to reorganize my bedroom at 11 o’clock at night, which my parents were always super excited about.

And so it just kind of came naturally to me as I started building these systems in my business. And it becomes kind of addicting once you see what you can streamline and what you can automate and how much work that takes off your plate while your clients are still super happy or potentially even happier.

Um, and that’s what gave me the opportunity to start helping other photographers figure it out for their businesses and kind of the rest is history from there. I started officially working as a system strategist back in 20, the beginning of 2022 and, started a podcast and all the things and that’s kind of what led me to the creative educator conference where I met you.

Colie: I mean, mine started, I was helping, I was mentoring photographers like with the business aspect. And as part of that mentoring, I was helping them get their shit together in their systems. And it wasn’t until I went on my business besties podcast. It was 2020. Hello. We were all sitting at home doing nothing, but I went on her podcast as the CRM expert.

I, I had a solo episode and then we actually did a round table where we had photographers who were using many different CRM so that we could have a really rounded conversation about the benefits of each of them. But after we recorded ours and we hit stop, I was like, Oh no, that’s what I’m going to do next.

That’s my next course. That’s what I

Sandra: I love it,

Colie: Went full force to make my course. And then by the time the course was ready to publish, people were like, okay, it’s great. You made a course, but can you just do it for me? And I was like, Sure. I mean, it just never occurred to me, but I love everything that you have been, that you have been saying about how systems save people time and money.

But let’s get back to specifically for you in relation to your chronic illness. So how do systems help you still be productive in your business when you are having a day where you are having a lot of inflammation, a lot of pain, and you really can’t get into your business in order to do client work or even work on your business?

Sandra: Yeah. So one thing that I, I tell this to everybody about systems and it’s really like the core of all of the systems that I’ve built in my business is to make sure that they will work for you on your worst day and not your best day, because on your best day, you have the energy, you have all the things that you need.

You’re killing it. You’re getting to every email you’re firing through your editing. All the things are going perfectly, but on your worst day, for me, that means like a lot of times. If my pain is really bad, I can’t hold my phone. I can’t be typing on my laptop. I don’t have the brain capacity to do anything but binge Bravo.

And so I just needed to find a way to make sure that my business was thriving on those days. And so that’s where my systems really come in with utilizing things like automated emails, Figuring out what touch points I can create for my clients to answer questions before they’re asked. So that way they’re not emailing me because we all know the weight of like the pressure of feeling like you have all of these emails piling up in your inbox that you need to get to.

 So kind of just trying to put myself in my client’s shoes and thinking about what questions they’re going to have for me. What different points of contact I want to have with them throughout our time together and setting up automated emails and things like that, to be able to make sure those go out, even if I’m not at my computer.

Um, and then another thing, a huge one was setting up a booking calendar and creating automations that lead in off of that. And so. for my mini session. Specifically, my clients can get the information on pricing. They can book their session. They can make their payment. They can sign their contract all while I am cozied up in bed watching the newest housewives episode.

Colie: All right, guys. I had a planned episode on this, but Sandra’s the person to discuss this with. My absolute favorite honey book feature is now the session based schedulers. Yes. So we’re going to talk about that very briefly because she queued it up. And so instead of making a whole episode for this, guys, I’m just going to take this one clip and I’m going to slap it on Instagram.

Sandra, I can’t tell you when they announced that and I first went into a smart file and I figured out how it worked. Okay. I was, like, gobstopped. I could not stop talking about it. So guys, let me just tell you what it is first of all. And HoneyBook is the only one to my knowledge that currently has this feature, and so I think that it currently, like, has the trophy for the ultimate Booking system.

So when you’re making your proposal or your smart file, you’re including your services page so that people can choose from one offer. One of the things that HoneyBook gave us in February of 2024, in case this episode is dated and you guys are like, we’ve had that forever next year. Yeah, this year it was new, but you can put in there.

the session based scheduler to where for each one of your services, you can choose a particular scheduler. So for me, if I was having clients choose between a two hour photo session or a three hour photo plus video session, once they chose the appropriate service, the correct scheduler would automatically show on the next page.

So it would either have two hour blocks. or three hour blocks. And that was a game changer because not only could you differentiate your services based on price, based on the inclusion, but now you’re giving your clients direct access to the appropriate scheduler during the booking process. And then of course they can finish out by reviewing their invoice, signing their contract and paying you money, which is what all of us love to do.

Sandra: Yes. And I will be totally honest, even though I am like a die hard ride or die for HoneyBook for pretty much everything. I was not on board with their scheduler for a really long time because of things exactly like you were saying, there was limitations, there was hurdles that I was running into. And so the way I had my session booking set up was they would book it through a third party site, and then I would queue up their automation and manually start it from there.

But now that they have so many options for how you can select different schedulers and how you can even like Set up automations based off the time they’ve scheduled and things like that. Um, like total game changer I’ve been slowly because of course I decided to dive all of into all of this at the start of busy season, which is a terrible habit that I have.

Um, but I’m slowly putting all of my, um, sessions now through lead forms and incorporating the scheduler and everything like that. And it’s been such a dream. I love it so much.

Colie: Now, the one thing that we’re still missing, and guys, again, at the time of this recording, it’s missing, but in the future, I feel like we’re going to have them very quickly, is the fact that you still can’t attach a contract to a lead form. That’s still just, I don’t understand why it’s not possible.

Sandra: I know.

Colie: If you’re not using a lead form and you are using a smart file as part of your booking process for projects that already exist, you do get that ultimate booking system, which is you show them the services and allow them to pick what they need. Then it shows them an appropriate scheduler for what service they’ve chosen.

If that’s something that you desire to do, and then it shows them the contract and then the invoice for them to pay. But so many other CRMs, while they have integrated schedulers, you cannot attach a contract to them, which to me is just bananas. So, like, this is the one thing where people are like, Colie, I know you do Honeybook now, but like, do you still think Dubsado is good?

I’m like, yeah, Dubsado is great. But like Honeybook’s got this one thing, this one thing where if you are really needing to schedule people at the same time and you want to make sure that you’re getting that contract signed at the same time, Honeybook just might be the CRM that you need to take a closer look at.

Sandra: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I’m totally with you on like, it doesn’t really, I mean, I’m not a coder. I don’t know how to do all that kind of stuff. I don’t understand why we can’t have a contract in a lead form. That I have set it up, which I’m sure you know all the things, but I’ve set it up. So like once they submit their lead form, then it just queues up another automation to send their contract.

And so I’ve just kind of like put like in bold letters, so people can’t miss it. Make sure you check your inbox. I mean, there’s always people that are not going to check their inbox and I have to chase them down for their contract. So it’s nice that there is a workaround, but yeah, I’m totally with you.

We need that in there. And then it’s like, no extras needed. Everything is perfect. Cherry on top with the

Colie: They make it gold stars for me just as soon as they do that.

Sandra: Exactly.

Colie: So Sandra, I want to ask you two questions. The first one that I want to ask you is in your business. So not setting up for other people, but like you running your own photography business or even your honey book setups like that as part of your business, what is your absolute favorite system that you have set up?

Sandra: Definitely my online booking calendar. I just, I found that I was losing so much time with the back and forth conversation with my clients and trying to figure out the dates and times that were good for them. Even just like the time that I was spending having to look through my calendar to pick and choose which dates were available.

 And so I just getting that set up and streamlined, even when I was using a third party software, um, our third party service and then just manually setting up an automation through HoneyBook. It saved so much time and I talk about this a lot, but I did the math once where if you were to save yourself one minute of time off of every email that you send and you said 20 emails in a day, you’re going to save yourself 20 minutes, which is great.

Not going to make or break your day. But when you add that up to a whole month, it ends up being like six and a half hours of time that you’ve lost by, just a minute per email. And so when you think about how that translates into how many times you have to email back and forth with the client on offering them different dates and times, and they’re like, Oh, that doesn’t work for us.

What about these dates? And then that doesn’t work for you. And it wastes time. So much time. So when you set up something like an online booking calendar, you’re taking that, like giving yourself that time back, but you’re also showing up for your clients in a way that respects their time. , and an example that I love to give with this is that a couple of years ago, I was looking for.

or a new stylist. I needed a haircut and it was like 1130 at night. I couldn’t sleep so I decided to just pop online and check out some local salons. And the one place that I decided to book with, I literally booked with them because they had an online booking calendar. It was 1130 on a Sunday night. I didn’t want to wait until Monday morning when they opened to call.

I had appointments, I was going to be busy. Like I just wanted to take care of it on my own time. And so when we set up things like online booking calendars and automations that allow people to self guide themselves. Oh,

Colie: Every time someone has to wait for you to answer a question before they can agree to pay you the money and actually put their credit card number in, that’s called booking friction. And the more booking friction that you can eliminate from your process means by default, you will book more of your leads.

So that’s my rule. I know we’re both Jordan Gill fans. She has a rule. If you don’t use a scheduling software, she will not work with you. She will not go on your, on your podcast. She will not hire you. Like you must have a scheduler so that she can go on and do this without all that back and forth. So I always love it when she says this, cause I’m like, everybody needs

Sandra: agree. Everybody needs it. When I hear people doing things manually, I’m like, why? Like, Tidy Cal and Calendly are free. You don’t even have to pay money. Stop. Take, like, take that work off your plate. You have so many more things that you could be doing that I’m sure you would enjoy a lot more.

Colie: Well, and the funny thing is, while I still use Dubsado to book my Dubsado services, and now I use HoneyBook to book my HoneyBook services, I actually don’t do my podcast in either one of them anymore. I have completely moved it to Airtable, which you know, after you booked this interview, and I’m using TidyCal for that.

And the reason that I’m doing that is because TidyCal has the Zapier integration to where when someone books, you can actually take that appointment. And do something with it. That is one of my number one hangups still for any scheduler that you were using inside of a CRM. None of them export that appointment date out, or at least not the ones that are most popular for photographers.

So I just wanted to put that out there. Like I love TidyCal specifically for my podcast interviews. So that once you schedule. You can automatically get your guest form. You can, I get notifications, you get notifications. Like things can happen after you schedule that interview. that’s your favorite.

What is your favorite to set up for your clients?

Sandra: Oh, my favorite to set up for my clients is definitely an inquiry workflow because this seems to be like the one thing that across the board of all the photographers that I work with, even some planners that I work with, everybody is missing an inquiry workflow because as photographers, I find that we really want to Put a lot of emphasis on that personal connection.

And so we want to be the person that responds to that email. So they know that we’re a real person and that we’re really invested in them. But there’s ways that you can still do that while still using systems and automations. And 1 way that I love to do this for my clients is just to like. Show them what can happen with an initial autoresponder that will give their clients information, answer questions that their clients have so that they feel supported without the business owner feeling like they have to be tied to their inbox 24 7.

So I remember working for other photographers before I was out on my own and We’d be driving home from a wedding and they would pull over to the side of the road because they noticed that they got a wedding inquiry and they wanted to reply to it. And that’s just so mind blowing to me. Like, you should be able to drive home from work and like, not have to worry about your inbox.

You should be able to enjoy a family birthday, a friend’s birthday, your kid’s birthday, your own birthday without having to respond to emails all the time. And so by setting something like that up for them. It shows them how not scary automations can be and kind of gets their wheels turning on what kind of work it’s going to take off their plate.

And when they start seeing that they start seeing how it can actually help them take on more inquiries and that excitement when they realize that is The reason why I love building these inquiries so much because it’s like they get this new like sparkle of wonder in their eye kind of like we’re Disney fans kind of like when you walk up to see the castle at Disney like it’s the same kind of thing and so I just love helping them achieve that in their business.

Mm

Colie: I just want to emphasize. Everyone should be getting an immediate response when they inquire with you if to do nothing but confirm that you got it. But there is still so much more potential in that first email. You want to continue the conversation, but it doesn’t mean that you have to be present.

In that conversation, just by extending to them, Hey, this is some information that I think is important to know. If you were thinking of hiring me as a wedding photographer, here’s that blog post, or here’s this behind the scenes YouTube video, or here’s what one of my clients had to say about a wedding, you know, that I did last year.

I mean, all of those things are ways to confirm that you got it. but also keep them excited until you are able to personally respond to them, which does not need to be immediately. I, I am totally guilty of that. And I know you probably were at the beginning of your career too. I mean, I would be at the dinner table and when my phone would ding, I would just pick it up and I would start typing my response.

And I mean, my husband and my daughter just got used to it, but why should they have to, like, you do not need to be the one that is immediately responding to them. They just need a response. They need to know. that you got their inquiry and you just need to tell them how much time it’s going to take to get back to them personally.

I mean, I have a joke in a few of mine. Uh, it could take up to 24 to 48 hours for me to respond just in case I met Disney. Because I want people to know if I’m at Disney, I’m not answering your email. I’m sorry. I’m writing Dumbo. I’m doing something else. But as long as you keep them informed and tell them what that next step in the process is, they are happy to wait for your response.

But if another, if you have not responded at all, and they hear back from another photographer or another creative that they inquired with, That’s the person that they’re likely to book with the first person in their inbox, but it doesn’t have to be you personally. It could be actually your automated bot.

I mean, I named mine and people were like, that’s weird. I’m like, whatever. It’s whatever.

Sandra: No, I love that. I remember talking to somebody once, um, and it was a friend who’s like not in the creative industry at all. He’s in the sports industry. So very, very different approaches to like how we, we think about things. And I remember him saying, He wondered how clients would feel to know that photographers were outsourcing their editing, or outsourcing their blogging, and all these things.

And I was like, well, why wouldn’t we? Like a CEO that owns a corporation, or runs a corporation, has thousands of people underneath them all working on what their specialty is. So why wouldn’t photographers do the same, or creatives do the same? And an autoresponder is a way to do that. We are just ourselves.

We don’t have, you know, all these people working under us. We don’t have assistants and receptionists to answer our phone and answer our emails when we’re busy. And so, using something like an autoresponder or a CRM is a way to do that. I always say that, HoneyBook is like my right hand. Like, I am right handed.

My left hand is just for show. It can like, you know, Carry things that can help me cut my food, but like, I am not, I’m by no stretch of the imagination ambidextrous, and so I, yeah, it’s, HoneyBook is not my left hand. If we relied on my left hand, nothing would get done. It’s my right hand. It runs my business for me.

Colie: I mean, but it’s also like the cheapest virtual assistant that you can get. And I say this guys, and I’m admitting, I have a virtual assistant that does a lot of stuff in my business. But I always feel like when people are like, okay, I think it’s time to hire a virtual assistant. I’m like, well, have you tried setting up your CRM first?

Like, have you seen how much time you can get back in that? It’s not that I’m telling you that don’t hire a virtual assistant. It’s just, you, you might not be at that step yet. Like there’s a, there’s a baby step when it comes to automating and streamlining your workflows that everyone should do before you go to hiring additional people inside of your business.

And like you said, the first thing that photographers tend to outsource is editing. But I mean, if you are someone who loves editing, but you hate being in your inbox, maybe you need to hire a virtual assistant to get in your inbox and answer your inquiries. But whatever you choose to do. I think that having a CRM as like your base to help you run your business is something that every photographer and creative needs.

Sandra: Yeah, it’s absolutely so important. I think like if anybody listening has been hesitating about getting on board with the CRM, now’s the time to do it. Just test the waters and you are not going to regret it. It’s going to be a game changer for your business.

Colie: Now, I do want to take a step back from the actual tool, like HoneyBook, Dubsado, the CRMs. all of that. What do you do if you have already scheduled some kind of client facing event? Like maybe it’s a call or maybe it’s that you’re actually doing a photography session and you do have one of your flare ups.

Like do you have some kind of system in the background that will allow you to communicate that to your clients and what does that look like?

Sandra: Um, so at this point in my career, I’m very thankful that for any days that I am physically going to be out behind my camera and having to actually leave my house, I have enough between like a combination of medications and sheer will, I’m able to get through it. And I also do a lot of just, I’m very, very particular about my schedule.

I have very strict boundaries that I don’t, tend to, you know, Waiver on unless I absolutely have to. And so for a wedding day, for example, the day before I’m not booking any sessions, I’m just home. I’m relaxing. I’ll do a bit of computer work in the morning, get to some emails, but that’s about it.

And then afterwards, I actually, at the beginning of the year, I go through and I find out where my wedding dates are, and I block the dates off. Following those, so I can just make sure that I don’t have anything that accidentally gets scheduled during that time. And so I kind of look at that as a system as well.

I think a lot of times when people think about systems, they think specifically workflows, but systems are realistically just like. The way that you do things. It’s just like a more technical word for it. Um, and so, yeah, exactly. And so I don’t necessarily do anything or have anything set up to let my clients know, like, hey, I’m not going to make it to your session today.

If I ever do run into that kind of situation in the future, I would just be honest with them and tell them that, That I’m have, like I’m sick or whatever the case may be. I am pretty open about having a chronic illness on social media. That being said, I know that not everybody sees everything. But I think in situations like that, just being honest and, doing what you can to support your client otherwise.

So I always, if I can’t make it to a session, we’ll give. Multiple, like, options to reschedule, and if it’s me who’s requesting the reschedule, I’ll throw in a little something extra, whether it’s extra time or extra photos or whatever, just to say thank you. But as far as days that I’m working in the office, one thing that I do if I’m having an off day and I’m really able to, like, lean on my systems, Anybody who’s listening that has a chronic illness is probably going to be familiar with the guilt that comes along with not working and this will apply to moms or parents as well who are having to take time off work because they’re looking after their sick kids or there are so many different scenarios that can make you feel this way but there’s this guilt that can come along with Not being in your business when you know that you have things to do.

And so my go to is Canva. It becomes my best friend. I live in Canva when I’m not feeling well because I just, I really enjoy being creative. And so it’s a way that I can still work on things for my business. without having to use the mental capacity that comes along with doing things that are client facing.

So I’ll make new graphics for launches that I have coming up. Put together some memes for social media cause I love making photography or wedding related memes out of things. and so things like that are a way that, yeah, I’m still able to kind of tackle things on my to do list while still giving my body the respect and attention it needs to rest.

Colie: I mean, you’ve said a couple of keywords in there. First of all, you have very strict boundaries that you do not go over. I mean, I talk a lot about how to communicate those boundaries to your clients as necessary, but one of the things that I personally had to do, because for the first quarter of this year, it was absolutely bananas.

Like I did no work. , I had to. go in everywhere that I was talking about timelines and I either doubled it or I tripled it. That was just to make sure that if I had a day where I literally couldn’t get out of bed, that I, you know, wasn’t up against a deadline that then, because there’s nothing worse than feeling ill and trying to get over it or trying to get better.

And then the guilt of letting down your clients comes back. So. That was just something that I did for myself. I also call it your break in case of emergency. In 2016, I lost my vision. Like I was completely blind and I was like, Do you know what’s really bad? There’s no list of my passwords. There’s no like master document.

And at that point I didn’t have any team members. So one of the things that I have tried, I mean, now my husband has all the passwords and he doesn’t really know what to do with them. He has instructions. If Colie is incapacitated, you must contact these three people, give them all of these passwords and tell them to, you know, figure it out because they’re all photographers.

They’re all business owners. But that was just something that I figured out for myself made me feel better so that. If you know it came down to it again, because like I had a class that was starting the next day after I lost my vision and I was staring at my computer trying to type, um, an email to cancel it.

I mean, and I just didn’t want to ever be in that position again. So it’s just it’s a weird. It’s a weird thing. But I also feel like you said your favorite thing was the booking calendar. If anything ever comes up for you. The first thing that you’re doing is going into your Google. or your iCal and you’re blocking off those dates which automatically takes it off of your booking calendar schedules whether they’re in HoneyBook or Dubsado or Acuity, Clalendly, TidyCal, whatever, they’re all synced.

But you should be managing your calendar on this one place and then everywhere else that it’s synced to will just pick up on those times and days where you have blocked yourself as unavailable.

Sandra: Yeah. That’s one thing I have all of my, I live through Google. I love Google. I have like, if I can connect it to Google, I’m going to, so I have all of my like schedulers and CRMs and everything running to my Google calendar. And so I have, , in Google, I have a separate calendar that’s just for like time blocking.

And so that way I can just pop into Google. And if I can. I can block off a week. I can block off a day. And it’s going to automatically sync to all of those calendars. So I don’t have to worry about it. yeah, that’s a huge game changer. I love doing that. It feels so good. It feels so good to just like stretch out a block of a week and just know that nobody can schedule anything in that time.

Colie: Sandra, why have I never thought about that being its own calendar?

Sandra: Do it. I love it. I started doing it because I hate taking photos during like, Lunch is my favorite meal of the day, so I want to be home for that. Um, but also the lighting is garbage and

Colie: Garbage. Absolute trash.

Sandra: Exactly. So like, I just, I want to avoid it. I want to be home enjoying my lunch on my couch. So I started it with doing, like a lunch hour block off because then, like with that online booking calendar, I was finding like, people were like, Oh, you know, my kid wakes up for lunch and then we’ll do the photos.

And I was having to like explain to people, we should shuffle that a little bit later. So I started it with Just blocking off that lunch hour across the board. and then sunset as well. So I could just kind of like shift it as the year went on and the times change. and then I started using it for the time off and it’s just makes it so much easier.

Then you don’t have to worry, like try to figure out what calendars you have and. All the things because brain fog for me at least rolls in pretty thick and like there are days that I Will be holding my phone trying to find my phone And so I don’t want to have to think of 10 places that I have a calendar.

I have to go and change

Colie: No, I mean, and that’s actually one of the, I don’t know about you, but that’s one of the number one questions that I answer about schedulers. They’re like, oh no. HoneyBook scheduler is so complicated to use because you have to go and update every calendar. And I’m like, no, you just update your Google. And they’re like, what?

I’m like, yeah, you put it on your Google and then it translates all of them. And they’re like, well, no. I share a calendar with my husband or I have my kids stuff on there. I’m like, yeah, those should be separate calendars and only the ones that affect your ability to book Should be sinking into honey book or whatever crm that you’re using And I always feel like people think that that’s a game changer.

They’re like, oh my god. I never thought about that. I’m like, yeah I’m like, your husband is working like that. Like I have my husband’s paydays. Cause you know, I definitely don’t have that nine to five paychecks. So I like it when I can see my husband’s nine to five paycheck on my calendar. But like that has nothing to do with me booking sessions.

So it’s on a completely different feed. And that feed does not sync to any of my CRMs or any of my scheduling apps. Like that’s just for me. So you can totally have calendar feeds that are just for you. And the only ones that should be syncing into HoneyBook or whatever it is that you’re using are the ones that actually affect your ability to book.

So like if your kid has a soccer game, or soccer practice rather, because I feel like we would all go to our kid’s game, let me not put that out there. But if your kids have soccer practice and you’re not transporting them, It just needs to be on your calendar. That should not be on a calendar that is sinking into your work scheduler.

Sandra: hmm. Exactly. I could not agree more

Colie: I mean, calendars can be so messy and I feel like every time I connect someone’s, I’m like, okay, let’s look at this together. And then I’m like, oh, will you say that you’re paying your credit card on this day? Yeah, that doesn’t need to be showing in HoneyBook. So let’s go ahead and make you a new feed that says credit card payments or to do tasks or whatever it is.

And let’s just move that over there. So that we don’t see that when we are coming into your honeymoon, unless I guess it’s like a business credit card. But I don’t think any of us are doing to do tasks on our calendar like that for our business credit cards.

Sandra: No, not at all. And like you were saying, like calendars can get a little crazy. I am a little obsessed with my Google calendar and I put everything on there. And one thing with endometriosis is it’s very heavily tied to your, your cycle. And so like I have a calendar on my Google calendar for my cycle.

So I know when I should be scheduling meetings and when I shouldn’t and things like that. And so if I have all of my Google calendars turned on at the same time, somebody will look at my phone and be like, Whoa, like when do you sleep? When do you have time off? And I’m like, Oh no, hang on a second. Let me turn all these off.

And then all of a sudden all these white squares appear and they’re like, okay, that seems a little bit more reasonable.

Colie: I mean, our calendars are for the way that our brains are working. So just because it looks like total chaos to you doesn’t mean that there isn’t some, some, you know, um,

Sandra: Method to the

Colie: Some method to the madness. I was trying to think of that I mean, and it’s not even late. I totally agree with what you were saying.

One of the things that I do on my calendar is when I am scheduling podcast interviews or client calls, all of them are in the morning. Because if you try to ask me a question after about 2pm, my answers are absolute trash, or it takes me like 5 minutes to answer something that early in the morning it will only take me 20 seconds.

Like, I need my brain to be firing. And so when you are considering, like, making time available for your business tasks, definitely the time of day. which is best for your photography or best for you to be working with clients. All those things should come into consideration. And I love what you said about tracking your cycles though, because as I get older, I feel like now.

The day before I have my cycle, I am absolute trash. And so I need to figure out a way to start integrating that into my scheduler so that I don’t accidentally schedule like a VIP day when I know that I’m barely going to be able to get out of my bed. That’s

Sandra: Yeah, absolutely. I use, I’m not an affiliate, but I use this app called Moody or Moody Monthly. I recommend it to everybody because it’s been a total game changer. It is so good with like on the ball, nailing everything as far as like how I’m feeling, how my energy is going to be shifting and things like that.

It’s awesome. And it’s been really helpful because with endometriosis and a lot of chronic illnesses, there are definitely a lot of unpredictable days, but there are some predictable days and that I didn’t really start figuring out until I started tracking my cycle and it was able to I was able to kind of start feeling like I had a little bit more control in my life again, because I knew that like this day is more than likely going to be a good day, or this day is more than likely going to be an absolutely terrible day, and so I can schedule those moments.

Really heavy mental load projects for days when I know I’m actually going to be up to it and that kind of goes back to that guilt that I was talking about before is that I don’t have the weight of all these things that I need to be doing weighing on me. When I’m not feeling well because I have scheduled them around those days.

Um, like you were saying, there’s nothing worse than trying to push through for a project deadline when you don’t feel well. And so that kind of helps me, try to work around that. And I think anybody who has a cycle, it can definitely come in handy regardless of if you have a normal cycle or not.

Colie: Yeah. I mean, Sandra, I feel like we have talked about so much today, but I always like to ask, like, is there anything else that you want to share about systems in general or creating systems to make your life easier when you do have a chronic illness? And

Sandra: that you need to make your systems work for you on your worst day and not your best day. And I think that it’s really easy for us to be putting together a workflow or coming up with a plan on how we want to tackle our week and think like, I want to get all these done.

And you know, this past week I was able to get all the things done. So this week I should be able to get all the things done too. But our energy comes and goes, things catch us off guard and. You know, take us by surprise and get in the way of us running our businesses, especially when it’s just us and we have nobody else to come and pick up the pieces while we’re away.

And so when you kind of, It sucks to put yourself in a mindset like that. But when you do and you think about like on a day that I am only able to do the bare minimum, whether it’s because I’m not feeling well or my kid is home from school sick or you know, we’re going to be traveling, I’m taking care of an older parent, whatever the case may be.

When you think about those days that are really taxing on you and when those extra things outside of your business are taking all of your energy, um, Setting up your systems for those days is going to be when you really feel the like power of what they’re doing for you. And then on the days when you’re killing it and you have all the energy and are ready to do all the things and you can just power through those systems, those workflows, those checklists, get all the things done.

And then the world is your oyster after that. You can go take some time off and exactly, exactly. I highly recommend taking time off and not just filling those times with more work, but the world is really your oyster. And so. Set. It’s kind of like when you set them up for your best day and then on your worst day, you can’t get to it.

All the to do list piles up and you’ve all of a sudden got all these deadlines. You’re chasing all these fires that you’re putting out. But when you flip it and you plan for your worst day, then on your best day, you’ve got some time off and I don’t know about anybody listening, but I would rather go with option 2 and enjoy that time off then go with option 1 and be always putting out fires all the time.

Colie: I mean, I’m really tempted to just end this conversation there, but you said something and it made me think of a question to ask you. Sandra, I have started asking, especially systems people like us, what are you using for your, for your task management? What are you using? Like, like not HoneyBook. Like, do you have like project management tool that you love?

Sandra: I do. I love Asana. I have, I tried a lot of different platforms. I mean, I tried a lot of different CRM platforms too. I think when you are obsessed with systems, you really like trying all the things out, but if you’re not obsessed with It’s also important to try things out to see what works best for you.

So, I’ve tried ClickUp, I’ve tried Trello, I’ve used Airtable, I’ve done all the things, but Asana really just works well with how my brain works. and so I basically, at any given point in time, you can find Asana and HoneyBook open on my computer. Like, they’re open 365 days a year, even though I’m not working.

Like, I just leave them open. And

Colie: You know what? I, I just thought of a different question. I mean, I, I’m, guys, I feel like I’m just going to ask Sandra all the questions. One of the things that I had planned to ask you, and it just didn’t come up with the mobile app.

Sandra: Oh, yeah, I totally forgot about that.

Colie: exactly? Are you using the Asana mobile app as much as you are using the HoneyBook one?

Or do you strictly stick to the HoneyBook app and only do Asana on your computer? Inquiring minds want to know.

Sandra: Yeah, I would say it’s I do primarily both on my computer. I do have both apps on my phone and I love using them. I love the HoneyBook app for being able to access client files on the go. I try to pull everybody’s important information like their contact information and session details and things like that.

I try to pull them into Asana beforehand, so that I can quickly just pull it up on my phone and refer to it. and it’s available even if I don’t have data, which is nice. Or no wifi signal or wherever. I do a lot of photos out in nature. So cell service isn’t always available and so it’s nice to be able to pull that up in Asana regardless of what my signal’s like.

 But with Asana, outside of like how I, I use it on a session, , I love having the app on my phone. specifically for like a brain dump. So if I have an idea for a topic on my podcast that I want to talk about, or if I find that I’m getting the same question over and over again from my photography clients, then I will usually just pop into Asana and I have a project in there that’s like my brain dump and I just pile it in there and then I can kind of like Shuffle it around into my schedule and content planning and things like that as I go But as far as like the actual like day to day work, I try to do it all on my computer I Have glasses tiny screens are not my favorite thing, but I also like I grew up with computers I’m a millennial.

I like my big screen and my laptop and you know People like props to you if you can work from your phone or your iPad. I see photographers all the time like exclusively working from their iPads and like all the power to you but I need like, I don’t know, I don’t feel right without my keyboard that actually makes noise when I touch it and you know the weight on my lap, the laptop that’s starting to burn a little bit, like these are all things that I need as part of my work day.

Colie: It’s like an aesthetic. Uh, no, I’m, I’m older than you. I had some technology in high school, but like, really, I got a lot of it in college and like you, I wear glasses. And so I love my 27 inch. IMacs, like that was what I always did things on, but more recently I replaced that with a 16 inch MacBook Pro and while it is big enough, I will say it is big enough for me to do daily work, but sometimes I really do miss my huge screen on my desk, but I’m really angry when I’m on planes.

Because this is just my little tip for everyone guys a 16 inch MacBook Pro does not really fit on those trays and if you get stuck behind an asshole who throws their chair back, oh, my God, I’ve almost had my computer broken twice because it was sitting there and someone threw their seat back and it like slammed on the top.

I’m just like, can you give me a little warning? Like, I just.

Sandra: Yeah. Not gonna lie, there’s a special place in hell for people who recline their seats like that.

Colie: okay. I, I also agree with you. I really cherish mobile apps for the notifications. It’s not really that I’m actually doing the work, but like ever since I’ve been using HoneyBook, like the little dings that it gives me to let, to let me know that someone viewed a file. Actually, I need to put that on Instagram.

It’s one of my favorite things because in Dubsado, there are no, alerts when someone just views a proposal. No, you get, you get an alert when they like fill it out and then when they sign the contract and then when they pay you money, but I love in HoneyBook that it tells you when it’s been viewed because then it’s like, okay, they actually got it.

Like, I don’t have to worry about whether or not the email got lost or like any of that kind of stuff.

Sandra: Right. Can I tell you a really sad story about the HoneyBook mobile app? Um, I have had my phone on silent since before I started using HoneyBook. I, I hate notification sounds. I, I never once have I heard the cha ching when I got paid. Never. And it’s like, it’s so, I don’t, I need to just like turn it on on a day that I know I’m gonna

Colie: no, you’re going to get

Sandra: Because I literally have been using HoneyBook for like, oh, about six years now, that since the day they launched in Canada, I signed up and I’ve been with them ever since. And I’ve never heard the cha ching.

Colie: Okay. Sandra, what kind of phone do you have? Are you an Android or an iPhone?

Sandra: We’re going to make it even more sad. I’m an Android

Colie: You’re an Android. Okay.

Sandra: There’s always one of us and that one is always me.

Colie: I don’t know if you have the equivalent, but we now have the focus modes, and so one thing that you could do is you could have everything silent on your phone, except HoneyBook. Like, I don’t know if you guys have an equivalent,

Sandra: Yeah. I don’t know what it’s called. We have something similar.

Colie: so see if you could do that. That way you’re not getting any alert notifications for anything else except your HoneyBook notification. Yeah. And then you could hear that to ting.

Sandra: I always love, like, every six months or so, my phone will update and I can always tell that Apple had a whole bunch of patents run up because all of my friends that had all of these features on their new iPhones, like, all of a sudden I get them all. Then they all come at once and it happens like twice a year and it’s always really exciting.

I’m like, take that iPhone users. Now I have it too.

Colie: Sandra, this has actually been an amazing conversation.

Sandra: It has been so fun.

Colie: Can you let everyone know where they can find you? And also talk about your workflow freebie that we are going to link inside the show notes.

Sandra: Yeah, of course. So if you want to find me online, you can find me at SimplySandraYvonne on both Instagram and Tik Tok. You can also find my podcast called Keeping it Candid. And that is on my website at SimplySandraYvonne. com. Ca slash keeping it candid. And my wedding photography freebie, so this is available to anybody regardless of what CRM platform you use.

You can take it and you can implement it into any one of them, but it is a step-by-step checklist that I actually use as a workflow in my own business. That will take you through from the point that your clients have booked until you have delivered their photos with ideas for touch points, timing on when I recommend sending it out, the, uh, recommendations for triggers that you can use on whether or not you want to send it automatically or just be notified.

It has all of that information for you. And so, we’re going to have that, I believe, linked in the show notes. And then you can also find that on my website at SimplySandraYvonne. ca forward slash freebies.

Colie: Yeah, guys, in case you didn’t pick up on it. That’s definitely a Canadian accent that she’s got.

Sandra: Yes, it’s always so funny when I am in, like, I come to a lot of conferences in the US and I’m usually the one and only girl from Canada there and so that becomes my, like, my way of people knowing who I am, which I love. But a lot of people will say to me, like, you, uh, like, you don’t have a very strong Canadian accent, but then I’ll say, like, the word out or I’ll say about and they’re like, ah, there it is.

Like it’s there. That’s we knew it would be there somewhere.

Colie: All right, everyone. That was it for this episode. See you next time.