EP 97: The Quarterly Catch-Up: Q2 2026

00:00:00 [Alison]
Travel guide’s updated.
00:00:01 [Alison]
The what to wear for the beach is updated.
00:00:03 [Alison]
Everything’s updated.
00:00:04 [Alison]
Everything else I did, I did according to my goals.
00:00:06 [Alison]
So that was pretty cool.

00:00:08 [Melissa]
Welcome to Get Booked, a photography podcast.

00:00:10 [Alison]
I’m Allison, active duty Marine Corps spouse, family photographer, and business mentor.

00:00:14 [Melissa]
And I’m Melissa, a lifestyle newborn photographer turned SEO expert for photographers.

00:00:19 [Alison]
Between us, we have been years in the industry, nine business relocations, and a lot of lessons learned the hard way through experience.

00:00:26 [Melissa]
We’re here to help you get visible, get clients, and build a business that actually books.
00:00:31 [Melissa]
Let’s go.
00:00:34 [Melissa]
Hey, guys.
00:00:35 [Melissa]
Welcome back.
00:00:35 [Melissa]
This is one of our fun episodes where we do our quarterly catch up.

00:00:40 [Melissa]
Although, just full transparency, we are a month late on this because we forgot.

00:00:43 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:00:44 [Alison]
The the episode that almost was

00:00:46 [Melissa]
a.
00:00:46 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:00:46 [Melissa]
The episode that we’re playing out episodes, I was like, oh my god.

00:00:49 [Alison]
When do

00:00:49 [Melissa]
we last do a quarterly catch up?
00:00:50 [Melissa]
We’re like, oh, it should actually be airing is when it should be airing.

00:00:54 [Alison]
C’est la vie.

00:00:54 [Melissa]
So instead yeah.
00:00:55 [Melissa]
It’s gonna air about a month later.
00:00:57 [Melissa]
But with this episode, this is one where we just kinda go over our goals from the first the previous quarter.
00:01:04 [Melissa]
Do we hit them?
00:01:05 [Melissa]
How did things go?

00:01:06 [Melissa]
And then looking forward at our goals the next quarter.
00:01:08 [Melissa]
And it’s funny because sometimes Alice and I are like, what were our goals?
00:01:11 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:01:11 [Melissa]
It’s an interesting

00:01:12 [Alison]
And if y’all

00:01:13 [Melissa]
wanna be a little more accountable.
00:01:14 [Melissa]
But Yeah.
00:01:14 [Melissa]
And if y’all

00:01:15 [Alison]
wanna do this in your own business, like, we totally suggest because we say this every time, it’s so nice to see what we thought we were gonna do.
00:01:22 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:01:22 [Alison]
I do have a very similar document in my shop, quarterly review, very inexpensive, cheap little download.
00:01:25 [Alison]
You can use on repeat every quarter.
00:01:26 [Alison]
So I’ll put a link on repeat every quarter.

00:01:30 [Alison]
So I’ll put a link for that in the show notes.

00:01:32 [Melissa]
Is it printable?

00:01:33 [Alison]
It’s printable.
00:01:34 [Alison]
It’s a PDF.
00:01:34 [Alison]
Yep.
00:01:35 [Alison]
And it’s printable.

00:01:35 [Melissa]
Alright.
00:01:36 [Melissa]
Y’all see see, that’s the thing.
00:01:37 [Melissa]
That’s what Alice and I need to do is we need to go put this stuff into her printable and then print it out and put it up on the wall so we don’t go, oh, wait.
00:01:43 [Melissa]
What were my goals again?
00:01:45 [Melissa]
Mhmm.

00:01:45 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:01:46 [Melissa]
Happen.
00:01:46 [Melissa]
Like, you know That is a good idea.
00:01:48 [Melissa]
It’s a good idea.
00:01:49 [Melissa]
I mean, things happen, and it just and I’ll talk about with that in mind.

00:01:52 [Melissa]
So So I’ll start off looking back on mine.
00:01:54 [Melissa]
One of my goals is I think is an ongoing goal for this year is to make some things for my sawdust.
00:01:58 [Melissa]
So I create things every month for all the different programs that I offer and stuff.
00:02:03 [Melissa]
And sometimes those things just sit and, you know, like, okay.
00:02:06 [Melissa]
Well, why not pull that out and create some kind of low ticket offer and start selling them?

00:02:11 [Melissa]
So that’s kind of my focus this year is to, is to do that kind of stuff.
00:02:15 [Melissa]
And then, you know, I’m working with my funnel coach on to focus on all of that stuff, creating those funnels, and so I have been working on some of those in the back processes and figuring out, like, what works properly and stuff.
00:02:26 [Melissa]
On, like, I think the testing phase of that and figuring that out.
00:02:29 [Melissa]
Guys, I have down here new website for SEO side and refresh on my photography website.
00:02:33 [Melissa]
I don’t know what I was thinking.

00:02:35 [Melissa]
I literally probably need to go back and listen to the episode and figure out what was going on in my head with that thought as a goal for q one.
00:02:42 [Melissa]
I guess I was thinking it because that’s when most of the time we do those refreshes.
00:02:46 [Melissa]
Except for me, the first quarter of the year, y’all, when you guys are all slow, I am slammed, which I’m gonna get into.
00:02:52 [Melissa]
So I don’t know what crazy town I was in thinking that’s we do a new website.

00:02:57 [Alison]
Whole another project.

00:02:58 [Melissa]
That was crazy.
00:02:59 [Melissa]
I had coaching week with, the motherhood anthology, so I taught in that, and that was really good.
00:03:04 [Melissa]
And then, obviously, you know, you guys saw our podcast rebrand, and that Mhmm.
00:03:07 [Melissa]
Than just a name.
00:03:08 [Melissa]
I mean, the hours that Allison and I spent on Canva together on Google Meet besides Yeah.

00:03:13 [Melissa]
That’s a whole that’s

00:03:14 [Alison]
a whole restructure of every website,

00:03:17 [Melissa]
every Yeah.

00:03:18 [Alison]
I didn’t bother with old blog post episodes about each each show, but, yeah, changing the name in all of the WordPress, changing the name on the links.
00:03:27 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:03:28 [Melissa]
That Well, just in everything.
00:03:29 [Melissa]
So and I’ll actually start with that one too of what went well and stuff.
00:03:32 [Melissa]
Because of the podcast rebrand, we actually are going back and we’re blogging show notes because that goes with my funnel stuff.
00:03:38 [Melissa]
And so one of my team members, that’s her job.
00:03:40 [Melissa]
She’s literally going back and creating show note pages for all of our episodes with our new branding and all of that.

00:03:46 [Melissa]
And then I have someone else who is helping me blog our episodes that certain episodes that I wanna turn into actual good blog posts, things that are SEO related, stuff like that that’ll work well on my website.
00:03:57 [Melissa]
So that podcast rebrand really pushed me to do that and to use that funnel kinda create a funnel from that for our site Yeah.
00:04:05 [Melissa]
So that I can put these things out, get people listening to podcast, get them on my email list, all of that kind of stuff.
00:04:10 [Melissa]
So that has been a big project going well.
00:04:12 [Melissa]
And then, actually, now, as ties in with one of my things, I brought in a VA from Allison.

00:04:17 [Melissa]
The company, she has them through Wedding Workflows.
00:04:20 [Melissa]
And so the VA is actually helping us get our podcast episodes, the ones that we turn into blog posts, onto Pinterest.
00:04:27 [Melissa]
And then I just had her do all of my lead magnets too.
00:04:29 [Melissa]
And so we are doing, like, 10 pins with different graphics, different titles, but they all go to the same post and different pin descriptions, all of that, and then they’re being scheduled out through Tailwind.
00:04:40 [Melissa]
And so this is something that I know Pinterest is good.

00:04:43 [Melissa]
I just have the time for it, so bringing on a VA to do it has been huge.
00:04:47 [Melissa]
So really for I’ve already kinda gotten into some of the what went well, but for us, this year was crazy.
00:04:52 [Melissa]
For our done for you service and stuff, this is May.
00:04:55 [Melissa]
This is airing.
00:04:56 [Melissa]
If you are thinking, well, next year, I’m gonna have Melissa take care of my website.

00:04:59 [Melissa]
I’m gonna contact her in January.
00:05:00 [Melissa]
You will be too late if you wait till January.
00:05:03 [Melissa]
I had people reaching out, and and they would reach they reach out the January.
00:05:07 [Melissa]
And I’m okay.
00:05:07 [Melissa]
Well, we have these dates available.

00:05:08 [Melissa]
And by the time they got back to me a week later, I was, yeah, we don’t have an availability for five months.
00:05:13 [Melissa]
And they were, what?
00:05:14 [Melissa]
And I was Yeah.
00:05:15 [Melissa]
You can’t wait on that stuff.
00:05:17 [Melissa]
We are booked now.

00:05:18 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:05:18 [Melissa]
We are booked out right now until August.
00:05:21 [Melissa]
And I would assume probably by the time this airs, we might be booked out until the fall.
00:05:25 [Melissa]
So if you want us working on your stuff, you need to get a deposit now and get on my calendar and go from there.
00:05:31 [Melissa]
So like I said, what didn’t go well was no time to do anything on website stuff.

00:05:34 [Melissa]
Coaching week went great with my presentation.
00:05:36 [Melissa]
I’m trying to repurpose that as a low ticket offer, which goes back to my selling my sawdust.
00:05:40 [Melissa]
I created this.
00:05:42 [Melissa]
Why not use it in other places?

00:05:44 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:05:46 [Alison]
It’s in here.
00:05:47 [Alison]
I have a blog post that is ranking in the top three nationally every spring for its search terms.
00:05:52 [Alison]
Another still blowing up from 2021, I think.
00:05:55 [Alison]
I actually can’t remember when I wrote it, but it’s been a long time.

00:05:58 [Alison]
And it’s the reason I had a wait list in Hawaii before I ever arrived on island.
00:06:02 [Alison]
In April, we’re building that for you live.
00:06:04 [Alison]
Workshop number two is blogging strategically.
00:06:07 [Alison]
Throwing a thousand words and some pics on a post won’t get you traffic or inquiries.
00:06:12 [Alison]
You bring your business, I’ll bring the strategy, and together, we’re gonna nail down custom keyword reoptimized content and twelve month blogging plan that books for you where you are.

00:06:24 [Alison]
Blog to book, link in the show notes.

00:06:28 [Melissa]
And then oh, I just came back earlier this month from the motherhood anthology retreat.
00:06:32 [Melissa]
So that was the February, March.
00:06:35 [Melissa]
And that was amazing.
00:06:36 [Melissa]
I love retreats and stuff like that.
00:06:38 [Melissa]
Just being able to, like, hang out with these people and just make connections.

00:06:41 [Melissa]
And we had past students.
00:06:43 [Melissa]
We had a past mini mentoring person who was there, and I was like, hey.
00:06:46 [Melissa]
I knew you.
00:06:46 [Melissa]
That’s fun.

00:06:47 [Alison]
That’s so fun.

00:06:48 [Melissa]
So it’s nice to see all the and connect with them.
00:06:50 [Melissa]
And then also, I’m part of this mentoring group that we’ve all never met in person.
00:06:54 [Melissa]
So this was the first time meeting in person, and it was just it was just nice to hang out with a bunch of women.
00:06:59 [Melissa]
I don’t know.
00:07:00 [Melissa]
I never I didn’t go to college, guys.

00:07:01 [Melissa]
I didn’t go and have the sorority experience or anything like that.
00:07:04 [Melissa]
So that’s what this felt like a little bit.
00:07:06 [Melissa]
Okay.
00:07:06 [Melissa]
It was like hanging out with sorority sisters.
00:07:08 [Melissa]
I wasn’t in

00:07:09 [Alison]
a sorority either, but yeah.
00:07:11 [Alison]
Because now it’s very collegiate feeling.

00:07:13 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:07:13 [Melissa]
And then all of these women are photographers, and a lot of them do education too.
00:07:18 [Melissa]
So feeling like you’re in the same same type of other life.
00:07:21 [Melissa]
I don’t know.
00:07:21 [Melissa]
Something along those lines.

00:07:22 [Melissa]
It was really nice.
00:07:23 [Melissa]
So I really enjoyed that retreat.
00:07:24 [Melissa]
I can’t wait for next year to see them all again.
00:07:27 [Melissa]
So, yeah, like I said, I brought on a VA too to help with Pinterest and also just some tasks that my team has to do of downloading reports, renaming, uploading to Google Drive.
00:07:34 [Melissa]
They don’t need to be doing that.

00:07:35 [Melissa]
A VA can do that while they take care of other things.
00:07:38 [Melissa]
And then we hired a new team member.
00:07:40 [Melissa]
So I hired a new team member.
00:07:42 [Melissa]
She’s actually a website designer by trade, and so she’s in our done with you program found and booked.
00:07:47 [Melissa]
And so she’s answering student questions with me.

00:07:49 [Melissa]
She’s giving me a break while she’ll cover on questions so I can work on other tech.
00:07:52 [Melissa]
And so that’s going really well.
00:07:54 [Melissa]
She knows a lot about the new ADA compliance stuff, and so she’s teaching me about that while I’m teaching her about SEO.
00:08:00 [Melissa]
And she’s starting to figure out how all this works and why.
00:08:03 [Melissa]
And now she’s starting to see other designers.

00:08:06 [Melissa]
She’s doing audits for me too.
00:08:07 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:08:08 [Melissa]
And I just saw she posted on threads this week.
00:08:09 [Melissa]
She was, I am appalled at how many designers have websites with eight h ones.
00:08:13 [Melissa]
I was like, because I’m welcome to the other side.

00:08:17 [Alison]
Wow.
00:08:18 [Alison]
Wow.
00:08:19 [Alison]
That’s awesome.

00:08:20 [Melissa]
That’s a lot.
00:08:21 [Melissa]
So those were my my goals and stuff and kinda where I went.
00:08:24 [Melissa]
So, Allison, what about you?

00:08:25 [Alison]
Well, on the photography side, I got the retargeting ads going up pretty quickly.
00:08:30 [Alison]
It’s going well.
00:08:31 [Alison]
I probably am taking too long to refresh the content on that, but, you know, c’est la vie.
00:08:35 [Alison]
That probably needs to happen.
00:08:37 [Alison]
I did rent some space and do some photos of my products.

00:08:42 [Alison]
It’s done.
00:08:43 [Alison]
I don’t love it.
00:08:44 [Alison]
So I did it.
00:08:45 [Alison]
I I’ve got the blog post up.
00:08:46 [Alison]
I’ve used the images, but I don’t love the images.

00:08:49 [Alison]
So I’m not using them to the same degree I would I had in mind to, but it’s done.
00:08:52 [Alison]
I did something.
00:08:53 [Alison]
I’m doing some reels on investment.
00:08:56 [Alison]
I actually like, I did a couple, but like I said, I didn’t love the images.
00:08:59 [Alison]
So I might be back at square one with that one.

00:09:01 [Alison]
I did get my video on my website.
00:09:03 [Alison]
Y’all, I had that for a whole year.
00:09:05 [Alison]
I ordered it

00:09:05 [Melissa]
last April.

00:09:06 [Alison]
It’s up?
00:09:07 [Alison]
It is not on Instagram, so take notes.
00:09:09 [Alison]
I should put that on Instagram.
00:09:10 [Alison]
Should do it real.
00:09:12 [Alison]
And I paid the extra $100 to get the vertical file, not just the horizontal one, so I should do that.

00:09:18 [Alison]
Right?
00:09:18 [Alison]
And then I wanted to get two to three sections a month.
00:09:20 [Alison]
I we we’ve hit that.
00:09:21 [Alison]
We’ve we’ve hit it.
00:09:22 [Alison]
I’ve it’s funny how from year to year, I remember my first spring in Hawaii.

00:09:26 [Alison]
I was booked up probably six weeks in advance, six to eight weeks in advance around spring break time.
00:09:30 [Alison]
Mhmm.
00:09:31 [Alison]
And that hasn’t happened again.
00:09:32 [Alison]
This is my my third spring break season.
00:09:35 [Alison]
That hasn’t happened.

00:09:36 [Alison]
It’s been really weird that is y’all probably know Hawaii got hit.
00:09:39 [Alison]
North Shore in particular got hit really hard with all this flooding.
00:09:42 [Alison]
And so I had one client had enough foresight and information to actually completely reschedule her session to August.
00:09:49 [Alison]
I had another client come in last minute, and we tried to do it, but there was just no access to where they were staying.
00:09:55 [Alison]
And so they actually ended up moving hotels for a night, but for whatever reason, they weren’t able to do the photo sessions that morning.

00:10:01 [Alison]
And so then they went back to their original place on the North Shore.
00:10:04 [Alison]
It was a big mess, and so I ended up refunding them because that was force majeure.
00:10:08 [Alison]
That was beyond any goal.
00:10:09 [Alison]
Road closures, and I certainly wasn’t gonna spend two hours before Sunrise trying to get through road closures to do their photos.
00:10:15 [Alison]
So Yeah.

00:10:16 [Alison]
That didn’t happen.
00:10:17 [Alison]
But we still hit some small goals.
00:10:19 [Alison]
I was able to utilize my VA while we were off on spring break, so it was really cool.
00:10:23 [Alison]
And then it is the ‘1 right now.
00:10:26 [Alison]
So now I’m trying to hold to my goal to order my client gifts for this quarter and send them out and not wait until November to do the whole year, which is what I did last year.

00:10:36 [Alison]
So it’s on my list.
00:10:37 [Alison]
I wrote it down.
00:10:38 [Alison]
I just it just haven’t done it yet.

00:10:41 [Melissa]
Hey.
00:10:41 [Melissa]
Quick break to tell you about something that could change your business.
00:10:44 [Melissa]
One of my students, London, was stuck relying on referrals and social media before she joined Found and Booked my SEO group coaching program.
00:10:51 [Melissa]
Less than a year later, she’s ranking on page one of Google, raised her prices, and left her 6 figure job to go full time with photography.
00:10:58 [Melissa]
If you want results like that, I’m hosting a free master class called the five SEO mistakes killing your photography business.

00:11:05 [Melissa]
I’ll show you exactly what’s keeping you invisible on Google and how to fix it.
00:11:09 [Melissa]
The link to register is in the show notes or head to pictureperfectrankingcom/mistakes.

00:11:16 [Alison]
And then I am still planning.
00:11:17 [Alison]
I haven’t had any inquiries for extended families over 20 people because I definitely want to map out a second shooter.
00:11:23 [Alison]
I do have a couple of people lined up to be in my pocket for that though.
00:11:26 [Alison]
Travel guides updated, the what to wear for the beaches updated, everything’s updated, everything else I did.
00:11:31 [Alison]
I did according to my goals, so that was pretty cool.

00:11:33 [Alison]
On the mentoring side, we did plan and execute our first paid pop up workshop on map out your marketing.
00:11:40 [Alison]
So if you have yet to do that, don’t know what that is, the recording is available in the notes.
00:11:44 [Alison]
So we did a beta test with my email subscribers.
00:11:48 [Alison]
We launched it.
00:11:49 [Alison]
It was successful for the numbers considering, and then I did not do a workcation.

00:11:54 [Alison]
That did not happen.
00:11:55 [Alison]
But I did completely reformat the podcast show notes.
00:11:58 [Alison]
So if you’re getting the show notes, you know that that that happened as the first of the year.
00:12:02 [Alison]
So woo woo.
00:12:04 [Alison]
As far as what went well and what didn’t, I did a ton.

00:12:06 [Alison]
It wasn’t on my goal, but I did a ton of email collaboration for some freebie swaps.
00:12:11 [Alison]
Because of that, ended up getting on Coley’s podcast, just me, talking photographer horror stories about how I have been ghosted.
00:12:18 [Alison]
Y’all know if you’ve been listening, I have a pet peeve for that.
00:12:21 [Alison]
Very difficult to hire photographers for me, apparently.
00:12:23 [Alison]
And so I got a

00:12:24 [Melissa]
So that was whose podcast was it?
00:12:25 [Melissa]
Coley.
00:12:26 [Melissa]
It’s not we know Coley, but you might need to explain who she is.
00:12:28 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:12:28 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:12:29 [Alison]
Coley James, creative’s the first, business first creatives podcast.
00:12:32 [Alison]
So we’ll probably be sharing that replay this summer, so stay tuned.

00:12:36 [Melissa]
Oh, yeah.
00:12:36 [Melissa]
It’s a good one.

00:12:37 [Alison]
And then the workshop we did execute on map out your marketing was really fun and easy.
00:12:42 [Alison]
It wasn’t easy because it was my first one, so I was a little bit jittery about it, but it was it was a really smooth, delightful process.
00:12:49 [Alison]
So I really enjoyed doing that, and so I am going to continue to try to do one of those each quarter.
00:12:53 [Alison]
So by the time this airs, though, in May, we’ll have already done the q two one at the April because I’m not doing any mentoring come summertime.
00:13:00 [Alison]
And then we did did work with a really awesome military spouse who is not relocating her business, but wants to up her game and get more business here.

00:13:09 [Alison]
So that was fun for month of March.
00:13:11 [Alison]
I love getting on Voxer and being able to help people out like that.
00:13:13 [Alison]
She was so fun.
00:13:14 [Alison]
She was like, it’s so nice to talk about the business with somebody.
00:13:19 [Alison]
She was like, I can talk about photography all day long with other photographers, but I don’t have anybody she didn’t have anybody to talk to about the business side.

00:13:28 [Alison]
Made my heart hurt a little bit.
00:13:29 [Alison]
I was like, that’s really unfortunate.
00:13:30 [Alison]
That’s my favorite part to talk about.
00:13:32 [Alison]
It’s my favorite part.
00:13:33 [Alison]
I can talk about gear, but it’s not it’s not my I can’t talk about ad nauseam like I can with this.

00:13:37 [Alison]
So we’ve had we’ve definitely had some some hiccups and it’s been really productive, but we’re we’re doing really good.
00:13:43 [Alison]
I’m I’m surprised.
00:13:44 [Alison]
I had all these big plans and now I’m teetering down for the summer because it’s gonna be whole hog photography and some of those goals for the rest of April and then mentoring will go to sleep for the summer.

00:13:53 [Melissa]
So let’s dive into q two.
00:13:56 [Melissa]
So q two goals for me, we actually launched in q one an heirloom photographer’s marketing system, and this was kinda one of those sawdust things where I had created this stuff.
00:14:05 [Melissa]
And then I was like, why am I not selling this?
00:14:07 [Melissa]
So I created that and launched it, and we did great presales and stuff on that.
00:14:11 [Melissa]
So that’s in our shop.

00:14:13 [Melissa]
And the question I got from everybody was, well, can you do one for this and this?
00:14:16 [Melissa]
So, basically, everyone wants one for I’ve got on the list now, newborn, maternity, family, seniors, and branding.
00:14:22 [Melissa]
So we have an opportunity to do five more of these marketing systems, and that’s on my list.
00:14:26 [Melissa]
That’s where all the people on my team taking on some other tasks are gonna let me create some of these systems to help keep marketing for those different things.
00:14:33 [Melissa]
So I’m excited about that because it involves a little bit of blogging, a little bit of SEO and landing page stuff, and a little bit of email marketing.

00:14:39 [Melissa]
So it kinda gives you a whole process, a system for all of that in one.
00:14:43 [Melissa]
So be on the lookout for those to drop over the summer and everything or over the next couple months, I guess.
00:14:48 [Melissa]
Figuring out a summer schedule, so I can work three days a week at most.
00:14:51 [Melissa]
That’s the goal.
00:14:52 [Melissa]
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, those are workdays.

00:14:54 [Melissa]
Friday through Monday are family time, extended weekends on the boat this summer.
00:14:59 [Melissa]
And so Alice and I just recorded an episode on, you know, working from home with kids and stuff, and that was something that I think is gonna be a big goal of mine.
00:15:07 [Melissa]
My daughter will be in camp for three days a week, but I do have my husband and my two older boys home.
00:15:12 [Melissa]
So they’re they’re at camp they’re with camp dad at that point because he’s a teacher, and so he’s got the summer off.
00:15:18 [Melissa]
So they get to do projects with him on those three days that I need to work.

00:15:21 [Melissa]
And I’m gonna try to stick with that this year.
00:15:24 [Melissa]
I feel like I always say I’m gonna work less and then I don’t.
00:15:27 [Melissa]
But at this point, I have built up a team so that I can shift all these tasks over.
00:15:32 [Melissa]
And so some of these things, the team can get them done quick.
00:15:35 [Melissa]
Another thing too, a lot of times there are people on my team waiting on me to review something, and I’m bogged down with other things.

00:15:41 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:15:42 [Melissa]
So kinda cross training people to do my job.
00:15:45 [Melissa]
I’m never gonna be uninvolved with it.
00:15:47 [Melissa]
I always wanna have some kind of oversight on things, but there are times where I don’t need to be the first person reviewing someone’s web page Yeah.
00:15:54 [Melissa]
To figure out what’s wrong with it.

00:15:56 [Melissa]
If my team can look at it and tell them what’s wrong with it, then that works great.
00:16:00 [Melissa]
And then once those things get fixed, then I can come in and review it and make sure it’s absolutely perfect and it’s done how we want it done.
00:16:05 [Melissa]
But I’ve gotten into doing all of the pieces.
00:16:09 [Melissa]
So shifting that over, I think, is gonna is gonna be helpful.
00:16:12 [Melissa]
And then the other part with that too, is I kind of am getting everyone ready for me to be gone for two weeks this summer.

00:16:19 [Melissa]
So we have planned this big trip.
00:16:21 [Melissa]
It’s something that’s been on our dream board for years.
00:16:25 [Melissa]
I know some people do Disney.
00:16:26 [Melissa]
We don’t do Disney.
00:16:27 [Melissa]
We have chartered a catamaran in EVI for ten days.

00:16:32 [Melissa]
So if you guys know that we have a sailboat here on the Chesapeake Bay, and we sail all the time.
00:16:36 [Melissa]
I’ve been doing it since 2009 when we got our and it’s funny.
00:16:39 [Melissa]
We were on a cruise before we left Florida, and we were in this one port.
00:16:42 [Melissa]
And my husband took a picture out the window, and we saw all these sailboats down in the water.
00:16:46 [Melissa]
And he was like, someday, I wanna be out there.

00:16:49 [Melissa]
And that’s legit where we’re gonna be.
00:16:50 [Melissa]
We found on the picture where the dock is for where we’ll pick

00:16:53 [Alison]
our boat up.
00:16:54 [Alison]
So it’s so crazy that we were literally gonna be But it’s not your boat.
00:16:57 [Alison]
You’re charting somebody else’s kit.
00:16:59 [Alison]
Okay.
00:16:59 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:16:59 [Melissa]
No.
00:16:59 [Melissa]
We’re chartering a catamaran.
00:17:01 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:17:01 [Melissa]
There’s no way we’re bringing our boat down there.
00:17:02 [Melissa]
We’re gonna keep her on the Chesapeake Bay.

00:17:04 [Melissa]
So we’re chartering a big fancy catamaran for that two weeks.
00:17:07 [Melissa]
This is that once in a lifetime Disney trip from when I was a kid.
00:17:09 [Melissa]
That’s what this is.
00:17:10 [Melissa]
We’ve already told the kids this isn’t happening every year.
00:17:12 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:17:12 [Melissa]
Not gonna happen.
00:17:14 [Melissa]
But it’s two weeks and, you know, my husband’s asked, can you not work on this trip?
00:17:17 [Melissa]
And I’m, oh, I don’t plan to.
00:17:18 [Melissa]
So Yeah.
00:17:19 [Melissa]
My goal is unless something’s on fire or someone’s super pissed off because we’ve done something, don’t contact me.

00:17:26 [Melissa]
I might check-in.
00:17:27 [Melissa]
I don’t know if it’ll be as bad as it was.
00:17:30 [Melissa]
When we were on our cruise, I remember that was hard because I literally was offline.
00:17:34 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:17:34 [Melissa]
I think I got access on my phone one day.

00:17:36 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:17:37 [Melissa]
You know, Internet and stuff.
00:17:38 [Melissa]
But, yeah, So that’s the goal is to kinda build things up so I can take some time on trial runs.
00:17:42 [Melissa]
On on

00:17:42 [Alison]
the Monday or a Friday and

00:17:43 [Melissa]
just don’t don’t Well, Mondays and Fridays are pretty slow.
00:17:46 [Melissa]
I feel like Just take a random day

00:17:47 [Alison]
of trial run.
00:17:48 [Alison]
Figure it out yourself.

00:17:49 [Melissa]
No.
00:17:49 [Melissa]
That’s a good point.

00:17:50 [Alison]
And then do do a one day and then do a two day and then do a three day and just Yeah.

00:17:55 [Melissa]
Work up to it.

00:17:56 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:17:56 [Alison]
Work up to it and just be like, okay.
00:17:57 [Alison]
We’re gonna go a whole week that we’re silent.
00:17:59 [Alison]
Just to you’re working, I’m working, but These

00:18:02 [Melissa]
are the tasks you need to do.

00:18:04 [Alison]
This this and take notes on what you what you need to ask me.
00:18:08 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:18:08 [Alison]
No.

00:18:09 [Melissa]
And, I mean, it might be good to do that do a week of that where we pretend available

00:18:13 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:18:13 [Melissa]
And you start writing things down, but, you know, I am available.
00:18:16 [Melissa]
But maybe it’s at the end of the day, you’re gonna debrief me on, like, what was

00:18:20 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:18:20 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:18:20 [Melissa]
A dry one.
00:18:21 [Melissa]
No.
00:18:21 [Melissa]
That’s a really good idea because I don’t wanna just leave people hanging.
00:18:24 [Melissa]
And I certainly don’t wanna leave clients being, wow, Melissa took off for two weeks and everything hit the fan.

00:18:28 [Melissa]
No.
00:18:28 [Melissa]
I’m not looking for that, but I do think I deserve a little vacation.

00:18:31 [Alison]
No.
00:18:32 [Alison]
You do.
00:18:32 [Alison]
And with the right client prep and team prep, it’s gonna be fine.
00:18:35 [Alison]
But, yeah, do a drag on.

00:18:37 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:18:38 [Melissa]
I think we actually, I wanna say I set it up too.
00:18:40 [Melissa]
We don’t have a done for you client while I’m gone.
00:18:42 [Melissa]
So that way, it made it easier because I I know.
00:18:45 [Melissa]
I know.

00:18:45 [Melissa]
I did plan ahead on that.
00:18:46 [Melissa]
So That’s So yeah.
00:18:47 [Melissa]
So those are kind of the goals for this next quarter.

00:18:49 [Alison]
Alright.
00:18:49 [Alison]
Okay.
00:18:50 [Alison]
So for me, guys, so again, on the mentoring side, we are launching I am launching this month in a few days few weeks, actually, the blogging workshop.
00:18:59 [Alison]
So it is a strategy for coming up with content, a twelve month plan to getting found on Google.
00:19:04 [Alison]
So customizing that strategy, that’s the whole guide there.

00:19:07 [Alison]
If you’re listening to us, the recording will be available if you wanna go grab it.
00:19:10 [Alison]
Very reasonable price if I do say so myself.
00:19:13 [Alison]
I am so at this moment, I already created it, but I am launching a free Facebook group for the podcast and mentoring.
00:19:21 [Alison]
Something I’ve avoided for many, many years because I’m not on Facebook personally.
00:19:26 [Alison]
And there is a debate on the death of Facebook and Facebook groups, but I can tell you one thing.

00:19:30 [Alison]
As somebody who’s in other circles with other organizations, I don’t go in them because I’m not going to go into another platform.
00:19:37 [Alison]
I’m not an early adopter.
00:19:39 [Alison]
I’m not I know myself.
00:19:40 [Alison]
So but I also know that Facebook groups are alive and well in the military circle.
00:19:45 [Alison]
So all my fellow mills their business, just free support question and answer, that’s what that’s gonna be about.

00:19:51 [Alison]
So look for that.
00:19:52 [Alison]
We’re gonna continue to collab for a little bit in April.
00:19:54 [Alison]
I probably won’t get to do get around to doing too much of that because May will be summer focused and then mentoring side goes to sleep.
00:20:02 [Alison]
Right?
00:20:02 [Alison]
But, for the month of April, I am doing a daily reels challenge where I’m challenging myself to do five reels in a row every single week.

00:20:11 [Alison]
This is part one for exposure.
00:20:13 [Alison]
Right?
00:20:13 [Alison]
Trying to build up exposure and views and all that stuff, but, also, it’s really to clarify my message.
00:20:18 [Alison]
It’s really a challenge for me to really stop and think through what I wanna say and who who I need to say it to.
00:20:26 [Alison]
Right?

00:20:27 [Alison]
I got the photography side on lock time with with my ideal client over there, but the practice is really truly for me on that side.
00:20:33 [Alison]
And it just comes with the side benefit of exposure and views and hopefully sales and emails.
00:20:37 [Alison]
We’ll see.
00:20:38 [Alison]
But then, ultimately, with that going back to that Facebook group, getting the meta assets set up, I ultimately want to do some retargeting ads for the podcast.
00:20:46 [Alison]
I probably will set something up in May to to just ride all summer or just change some things out for the summer.

00:20:52 [Alison]
That way, while people are traveling, we’re just getting in front of people.
00:20:55 [Alison]
Right?
00:20:56 [Alison]
Just getting people in the top of that funnel, if you will, listening to the podcast.
00:21:00 [Alison]
Then, yeah, we’re wrapping up mentoring in May.
00:21:02 [Alison]
I will not be doing any client facing work from May, June, or July, probably even August.

00:21:08 [Alison]
August will be the kinda hangover from the summer busy season, and then we’ll bring it back maybe in October.
00:21:15 [Alison]
Maybe.
00:21:16 [Alison]
Maybe.
00:21:16 [Alison]
So if you’re listening to this and you wanna get on my call, get there’s gonna be a wait list on the website, alisonbell.co, but I won’t be available.
00:21:23 [Alison]
So sorry.

00:21:24 [Alison]
Maybe DM me.
00:21:24 [Alison]
Maybe DM me.

00:21:25 [Melissa]
Okay.
00:21:25 [Melissa]
So podcast coming back in August.

00:21:27 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:21:27 [Alison]
The podcast will come back in August.
00:21:29 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:21:29 [Melissa]
The podcast will come back in August.
00:21:31 [Melissa]
My for a second, it sounded like we

00:21:31 [Alison]
were taking

00:21:32 [Melissa]
the podcast off till August.
00:21:32 [Melissa]
It’s all

00:21:33 [Alison]
My my one on one services will be off until almost October Yeah.
00:21:36 [Alison]
Or later.
00:21:37 [Alison]
I don’t know.
00:21:37 [Alison]
We’ll have to see what happened in the fall.
00:21:39 [Alison]
So for the photography side of the house, retargeting ads are up and live.

00:21:43 [Alison]
They just need to rehash that content.
00:21:45 [Alison]
We are booking up for summer.
00:21:47 [Alison]
It’s been open for a while.
00:21:48 [Alison]
I am gonna be taking three weeks off in July, so I am booking up my associate for that.
00:21:53 [Alison]
I am toying with the idea of hiring a second associate.

00:21:56 [Alison]
It’s PCS season.
00:21:57 [Alison]
I’m already looking for photographers.
00:21:59 [Alison]
If you are PCSing to Hawaii and you’re a photographer, DM me.
00:22:03 [Alison]
I might have some more.
00:22:04 [Alison]
So if if that I’m not working terribly hard on that.

00:22:07 [Alison]
I’m putting out feelers and asking.
00:22:08 [Alison]
But, if that happens, I would love for that to have some extra work for them.
00:22:12 [Alison]
And then I am I’ve really been working strategically with my VA on getting her to design albums, sample albums, placing client orders.
00:22:21 [Alison]
She hasn’t actually she’s creating the order.
00:22:23 [Alison]
She’s not placing the order.

00:22:24 [Alison]
So I’m really preparing myself and her for the the summer season.
00:22:28 [Alison]
So the summer with photography gets really busy, and then I take off.
00:22:32 [Alison]
And so I am I am trying to figure out all the bits and piece can have her go in and and do.
00:22:37 [Alison]
So right now, I’m assigning those.
00:22:38 [Alison]
And over the next month and a half, I want to train her to get into my CRM, see what needs to be done, and execute it without as much direction from me.

00:22:48 [Alison]
So lots of client follow ups happening there.
00:22:50 [Alison]
And then I did execute a whole album in my workflow for for pre selling albums.
00:22:56 [Alison]
So it’s linked to that blog post that I got up that has the imagery, the comparison, the side by side of hours and theirs, the construction and quality and the reason you wanna have these, all that stuff.
00:23:05 [Alison]
So that email is on autopilot to booked clients before their session.
00:23:11 [Alison]
And then someday, one day, long term goal, I want a client magazine for that mess.

00:23:15 [Alison]
So we’ll see.
00:23:16 [Alison]
That Oh, yeah.

00:23:17 [Melissa]
That’ll be pretty.

00:23:18 [Alison]
That would well, it really needs really pretty photos, which we still haven’t gotten.
00:23:23 [Alison]
And I think that’s gonna have to be I think I would have to hire somebody to just, here’s what I want.
00:23:27 [Alison]
Here’s my content.
00:23:28 [Alison]
Dump it.

00:23:28 [Melissa]
Oh, yeah.

00:23:29 [Alison]
And have and just hire somebody to do it for me because I wanted to do this for years at this point.
00:23:33 [Alison]
So yeah.
00:23:35 [Alison]
So and with the time bomb on how long we’re gonna be in Hawaii, maybe I don’t even do it in Hawaii at all or maybe I get it done immediately so I can use it for two years and then have to restructure it.
00:23:46 [Alison]
So that that those are the goals, guys.
00:23:50 [Alison]
Feels a little less than q one and rightfully so.

00:23:53 [Alison]
Most of q two is summertime where I am pulling back pretty heavily on half of my work, half of the the work that I do do.
00:24:01 [Alison]
So we can focus on just the photos, the people that are here, and, hanging out with my kids while they’re home.
00:24:06 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:24:06 [Alison]
Because as of this summer, I will have a rising junior.
00:24:10 [Alison]
And it is very much in the front of my mind that I it is the it feels like the beginning of the end for him, his final two years of high school.

00:24:16 [Alison]
That’s weird to me.
00:24:17 [Alison]
Thanks for listening, guys.
00:24:19 [Alison]
Until next time.

00:24:19 [Melissa]
Alright.
00:24:20 [Melissa]
Bye bye.
00:24:23 [Melissa]
Thank you so much for listening.
00:24:24 [Melissa]
If you’re enjoying the show, would you do two things for us?
00:24:27 [Melissa]
First, leave a review.

00:24:29 [Melissa]
Just stars would be awesome.
00:24:30 [Melissa]
And two, forward this episode to a biz bestie, mil spouse, or anyone facing moving their business.
00:24:35 [Melissa]
We’d love it if you shared this episode with even just one person.
00:24:39 [Melissa]
If you have questions, you can reach out to Allison Graham at Allison Bell Photog, or you can find me, Melissa, in my Facebook group, Picture Perfect Rankings.
00:24:47 [Melissa]
Check the show notes for links, and we’re so excited to have you guys here.