EP 85: Refine & Review: Your Slow Season Strategy

Melissa Arlena: [00:00:00] Hey guys, welcome back and I am going to give a very big happy anniversary, Allison. Alison: Happy anniversary to your birthday. Woo woo. Melissa Arlena: This is our two year anniversary for the podcast, and, uh, we, we actually got it this year, I think last year we were gonna do something about like, oh, we had a year and then we just had record episodes and forgot to even say it. Alison: We totally forgot. We were so ahead of the game. We didn’t think anything about it. I think we had probably recorded into February before Christmas at that point. Melissa Arlena: Yeah, I Alison: ’cause we were just very eager to have it done and we’ve hit our stride. We’re we, we realize there’s some faults in some not great things about being so far ahead that you can’t. Communicate and advertise and share about more current events and happening. So here we are just finding our stride and, and not planning so far ahead, but we’re also not like panicking either. So, um, happy birthday. So exciting. So it was February 5th, 2004 that the podcast launched and we have, Melissa Arlena: Uh, Alison: we have [00:01:00] Pub Melissa Arlena: not 2004. Alison: Sorry, y’all, same thing. Same, same. No diff uh, and my head is. Oh my God. That’s the year I graduated high school. Okay. So, but yeah, 2024. Um, so we, what were we doing? What, what was it? Hold on, pause. Where am I? Where was I going with this? I don’t know what I was going, oh, we have published an episode. Almost every single week, sometimes over the holidays being replayed. I don’t know that we have missed a single week of pushing out an episode in two years. Melissa Arlena: Yeah, it’s funny ’cause somebody was asking, they’re like, well, what do podcast seasons run? And I mean, Jenna Kutcher just stepped away from her podcast. She called like six years as season one. And like I think we Alison: What? Melissa Arlena: seasons. Oh yeah. Like in September. But I know other people do others, so I Alison: Yeah. It can really be even in anything, like, it’s almost like TV’s, like, what’s the season? I don’t know. Whatever you wanna call it. Melissa Arlena: is on like [00:02:00] season 22 and I’m like, wait a minute, it can’t be that old. Right? Like, I Alison: Yeah, no. So I think for our purposes we talk, we kind of go in seasons of recording. We record in the spring and we record in the fall, like winter, spring, summer, fall. So that’s how I do our season. So we are technically in season five right now, is what we’re recording and sharing. Melissa Arlena: seems Alison: So. Melissa Arlena: yeah. Alison: It’s, yeah. Congratulations. So thank you guys for being here. Thank you for listening. Hopefully you’re deep diving all those two years of episodes and finding lots of great information. Um, please give us the feedback. This is such a one way street. If you are listening, please leave a comment. Reach out to us on Instagram, tell us we sound stupid. Tell us we’re amazing, whatever, whatever you wanna say, but like, Melissa Arlena: us a Alison: give us some feedback. Leave. Yes, some stars. Good reviews, positivity. Melissa Arlena: I don’t think we have any new reviews, guys. So we are gonna blatantly on our two year anniversary ask for the gift of reviews from you guys. Alison: That’s right. The stars. Melissa Arlena: and just give us, give us a review. So we’ll go ahead and dive into our episode this week. So Alison: Here we go. Melissa Arlena: talk about like scheduling time to refine and review [00:03:00] your systems. Like I know winter is a great time to step back from working in your business instead of working on your business. To start working on your business when you’ve been working in it, making sure I get it right. Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: what that means is when you’re working in your business, you’re so busy doing your job, so you are shooting sessions, editing, all of that kind of stuff. Alison: Replying to inquiries. Keeping up with emails. Yeah. Melissa Arlena: But then working on your business. Alison: Pause. Do you hear that? Okay, cool. Sorry, they’re big plane outside. Sorry. Redo. Melissa Arlena: on your business is gonna be more of marketing and planning ahead and all of that kind of stuff. And it can be hard ’cause you can feel like you’re drowning in the business and then you just never get the chance to like work on the business. And I know I struggle with Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: but January Alison: Yeah, Melissa Arlena: like when I updated my website, the design every other Alison: portfolio. Melissa Arlena: but the images and I focused on my SEO. Um, so those were some easy January tasks, but I think January is also a really [00:04:00] great time to stop and review your current systems. Like what’s working, what’s not working. And honestly, I should take this advice myself, but like, go ahead and set it on your calendar now. Like once a quarter of just like, Hey, on this day I’m gonna review and refine some systems. Like this could be Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: you’re like, oh. My onboarding system, my onboarding emails, like I always talk about when Allison and I went to imaging USA, I got stuck at the hotel for the day for my flight and everything. And I literally spent that day creating my entire onboarding process for my done for you clients. And it was great. And we’ve talked about Workation, workcation, guess, um, and Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: But you know, it’s that whole time of like set some time and now is such an easy time to do it. Everybody’s freaking out. Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: They’re like, there’s nobody booking right now. Let’s go ahead and review and refine those. Systems when you have the chance. Alison: Yeah. And y’all, we have, I have a quarterly review template. You’ve listened to the episodes as quarterly catch up. It’s the same template. Go into the link. We’ll have the link in the show notes, grab. It’s a, it’s a download. Go grab it, [00:05:00] walk yourself through that. Do that every quarter. Set it up and habit stacking like. Yeah, it sounds lame. It’s easy to push off, but if you can stack it with something fun, like taking yourself out to lunch or taking another biz bestie out to lunch and doing it with them, um, whatever you need to do to hack yourself into doing it, you really should. You’ll think yourself later. Melissa Arlena: So what Alison: Did you, oh, could you, Melissa Arlena: Oh, Alison: could you hear all that? Do I need to say it again? Melissa Arlena: no, I think you were fine. Yeah. Caroline’s gonna kill us on this episode. Alison: Flury. Melissa Arlena: So Allison, what are you working on and refining this Alison: Oh my gosh, I couldn’t agree more. It has been, I have actually already started doing a lot of this. So thinking, you know, there’s two sides of, of both of our businesses, right? So I am heavily into photography, which is. By the blessing of the Lord here in Hawaii year round. It is a slower time of year for photography, but I am still in it. Um, so I’ve got [00:06:00] photography side and then I’ve got the mentoring side, which picks up this time of year as well. So, um. I have already updated my what to wear for beach photo sessions. I have got a blog post and a lead magnet that both needed to be updated. Um, they are top performing, uh, blog posts for me, so like national level searches. It, it’s in the top three. Keyword, um, search results. So, um, updating that, just to make sure it said, uh, 2026, not 2024, on both the download and the actual blog post. So it looks relevant, but also updating my, my, um, my advice, you know, things updating what I say about hair and what I say about large families, and making it as, as close to exactly what I share with my clients as possible, because live and learn things evolve. And all those tiny details do matter. Um, so the what to wear po, uh, blog posts, lead magnet, and the email delivery sequence that the lead magnet is delivered to, we’re all updated. Um, then I have another, um, side to the [00:07:00] photography of business, business, all about traveling to Hawaii with kids. So this is, this whole concept is something I put out in, out on the internet to get in front of people who are traveling to Hawaii who maybe haven’t thought about doing photos while they’re here. But I want them to think about doing photos. So I get in front of them by giving them lots of like mom specific advice, um, for their kids while they’re here in Hawaii. So I have a travel guide lead magnet, so that’s a downloadable e uh, lead magnet. I’ve got blog post galore. I’ve got that, uh, email workflow that that travel guide is sent in. And then I’ve got a very long travel, um, sequence of, you know, I’ve been here for. Two and a half years. So all of that content about like how to hike this, where to take your kids’ boogie boarding, the best thing for teens, where to eat, lunch, all those things. Um, I’m constantly dripping out to people who have signed up for that email, um, list and it, and I update that quarterly. I’m constantly thinking of new things to share as I explore and live here. Um, think, you know, my kids are growing up so I’m able to share more content with them. So all of [00:08:00] those things have been updated and when I say updated y’all, I like read every email in the flow. And I updated it, like I tweaked it. I made it sound a little bit more like me. I just made it just a smidge better, right? Everything can always be improved. Um. Uh, also, also I have a tr uh, flow for, um, new inquiries. So when I get a new inquiry on my web form, there’s a little button they get to tick. If they want all my, um, tips and tricks for making the best outta their photo session, they tick. Yes. I don’t think I’ve ever had anybody tick. No, they have a sequence. So I updated that, talking about like what to wear. Some of my best, my favorite places to shop on island to get that, um, Hawaii look while you’re here. That was updated. Um. And then. For my website, I, this is actually goes back to, um, our quarterly catchup. I actually did a couple things that I didn’t do last quarter and I went ahead and put the video that I bought, I don’t know what, almost a year ago. It is up on my website. So you can go alison bell [00:09:00] photographer.com. That video is finally up. I bought that last April. Um, that’s on my homepage. And then I bought a beautiful map. I paid, I had somebody. From Etsy, um, customize a watercolor painting of the islands, um, and then customize my favorite locations on it. Uh, and she was fantastic. She gave me a tiff so I could customize it and I could do rollovers if I wanted to get that tricky with it. Uh, but no, I bought that circa 2023. It’s up on my website now here in 2026. Um, so that got done that. So it’s just prettier. It’s just nicer looking. Um, and then on the mentoring side, same thing. All my freebies, the podcast, the welcome sequence, the show notes, the wait list, all those things are updated. We completely transformed. Um, the nature of the podcast. Show notes, the, the podcast email. So there’s a new list. So if you want, Hey, shameless plug, if you wanna list the things you need to be refining and looking at. You wanna just in your inbox, maybe you’re driving, walking, doing laundry, feeding your kids, or ignoring your kids. [00:10:00] Whatever you’re doing, you want a, a note written list of things to, to tackle After this episode, go to the show, go to the show notes, sign up for the email, and I will email to you every week, um, your primary takeaways to apply in your own business. Um, so that’s a lot. That’s a lot. Ad break. Um, so, and then things I have, I have yet to do but are on my docket to do, I need to update some blog posts with newer client images. I have found that as clients are looking for places specifically most recently, turtle Bay, I’ve got one great blog post about Turtle Bay, but it only has one session of images on it. Uh, I’ve done at least three or four out there. I need to mix up some of those images, but I can’t decide. And maybe I could get your input. Do I just create another blog post? And I don’t know, which, I don’t think the keyword volume, there’s plenty of volume for it. I don’t think there’s enough variety in keywords. I’d probably just be competing against myself. Um, but then maybe if I could just have multiple listings [00:11:00] for the same keyword, like, is that helpful? I don’t know. Melissa Arlena: No. Alison: When, when you see like Allison, Allison, Allison, that’s not enticing. Melissa Arlena: No, but Alison: No. Melissa Arlena: the thing. Google doesn’t let you do that anymore, so. Alison: I see it. Okay. Melissa Arlena: that’s the thing, Alison: Okay. Melissa Arlena: smaller area and you’re the only person blogging for it, then yeah, you might have multiple listings. But, um, but Google, like, ’cause yeah, that’s what I used to do all the time. I’m like, heck Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: of the people for this wedding venue. All of the blog posts are mine and then Google. Stop letting you do that. But um, if Alison: Okay. Free SEO advice. Yeah. Melissa Arlena: if it’s a really small keyword, then you might be able to get away with it. I think I’ve noticed some people with smaller keywords might have two pages that show up, like a blog post and a main page. Um, but Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: like get real specific. Even if the keyword doesn’t have any traffic, but it’s very specific to what that is, it’s still Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: with like establishing you in that area kind of thing. And I think with Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: too, I think a lot more, um. Keywords that we go, oh, well I wouldn’t target that. ’cause it doesn’t have a lot of volume. I think you could still do a blog post [00:12:00] for it. And it’s probably gonna start coming up more in AI because of the way people search and talk about things. Like they have a Alison: That makes sense. Melissa Arlena: you know, we’re staying at this hotel, we’re gonna be near this area, and they’re getting a lot more, you know, into the nitty Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: So, Alison: Yeah, that makes sense. Melissa Arlena: real Alison: Yeah. Well, regardless of how I execute that, I need to get more recent images, and I say recent, I say like in the last year on my website and in my blog post. Melissa Arlena: Yes. Alison: update all that stuff that’s gotta happen. Uh, and then other things, I need to record a new video for my inquiry calls. I, you know, I get on the phone with every single one of my photography clients. Um, but I send them, one of the ways I kind of keep it short is I send them a video walkthrough of the artwork options where I, Melissa Arlena: Mm. Alison: you know, it’s the same things I would say to anybody else. It’s the same, the specs, the price points, the benefits, the, you know, all the things. And so I need to do that. I, I like to do that once a year. It’s time to update that video. Um, and then I’m really a value, one of the things I’m really taking into consideration, and this has been on my mind for a while, is how I show up, share and [00:13:00] sell my artwork. Because really I don’t, when it comes to social media before inquiries, I really don’t do a good job of it at all. And I haven’t for a long time. So. I actually am slated to go to a my friend’s studio, borrow her studio to get some really good artwork, product imagery, so I can start re start sharing more frequently and, and make it a standard, um, messaging that I wanna, Melissa Arlena: that’s a great Alison: you, Melissa Arlena: to like set up now and stuff. Alison: yeah, because you sh you sell what you show. Melissa Arlena: Mm-hmm. Alison: And I’m not showing the albums, and I, like, almost every single one of my clients buys an album and I do a piss port job of that. So, um, and that is, and that is all in an effort to, to garner and attract people who want this full service experience. Right. Um. So, and then finances. I really want to, um, I’ve had this in mind for a while, but I just hadn’t done it. I, I have a holding account for all those sessions that have paid into the deposit, um, but haven’t executed those sessions. Like I don’t spend that money personally, you guys, and when we do the profit first over [00:14:00] here. And so I keep that in a holding sell, so to speak. I would really love to set up that as a high yield savings account instead of just leaving it. Doing nothing. But the problem is I’ve come to find out it’s a little bit more transferring than I really want to, because you can’t, you can’t transfer it automatically straight into a savings account. It has to be into a checking account. So there’s some double dipping I don’t love about that. Um, but we’ll see. That’s something I wanna get set up because it’s, there’s consistently too much money in there not to be earning me. Higher dividends. So think about that in y’all’s, in y’all stuff. And then of course, I, we just had a giant podcast update, um, with the rebrand. So I’m working on updating all of that stuff. And then this whole year, when it comes to mentoring and education for photographers and business owners and military spouses, I, I have a whole goal of doing three live workshops this whole year, one a quarter, except for the quarter I take off. I don’t, I don’t do this in the summer. Mentoring shuts down completely, so. Uh, at the time of [00:15:00] this recording, I’ve got one coming up February 4th. By the time this airs, it’ll have already happened, but we’re gonna do another one before, uh, may. And then we’re gonna do another one probably in, um, sometime in the fall or December. And we’ll see. Nobody’s gonna have time in the busy season of fall, but maybe like right after late November, early December, we’ll see. We’ll see what going. So that’s, that’s all. It’s a lot, isn’t it? It’ll, it’s enough to take up a whole week. Melissa Arlena: It feels like more than that from what you’re talking about. Um, Alison: goes pretty fast. Melissa Arlena: Yeah, I mean, over here for us, um, some of the things that I look at is, um, like Alison was talking about with updating dates on things like I, I just updated our, um, our onboarding guide. And it was funny because it said 2023 in one of the spots of like, Alison: Oh, whoopsie. Melissa Arlena: folder. And I was like, oh, well this was from when I, three years ago, sat down and Alison: When you were sat down at a by a fire in Nashville, Tennessee. Melissa Arlena: exactly. And so kind of before I updated our onboarding guide, you know, I checked in with my team, I’m [00:16:00] like, Hey, what are some things that we need to be doing differently now? Um, and like, so one of the things that was really simple was like, Hey, we need more images than we used to ask for. And so they were like, can Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: in? I’m like, yes. I can just go change that number and bam. Alison: Yes. While you’re already in there. Melissa Arlena: Like reviewing things like that, reviewing, you know, your pricing guide, reviewing, um, your communications and stuff. Um, you know, figuring out your marketing. Like for us, I’m trying to map like sales funnels for our, our offerings and stuff. And I know when it comes to photographers, like that’s not necessarily something that you always think about, but you could still have, you still have like a. Funnel type thing. You know, you could have a lead magnet that brings people in, that’s the top of your funnel, and then you have Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: that nurture them and that’s the middle of your funnel, and then it guides them to booking you. That’s the bottom of your funnel. So even though things like sales funnels can sound scary, they are still Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: to what you do and Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: I mean, even fits posting on Instagram. Alison: Yeah, I will link my sales funnel. I’ve got a funnel worksheet where we have an example of a photographer’s funnel, all those things from top [00:17:00] to bottom, and then a place for you to fill in what your funnel is, what you think it is. There’s two things, right? There’s what you think it is, and then the reality of it. So we’ll put the notes in that to, to download that. Melissa Arlena: Um, coming up with lead magnets. So like even, you know, I’m doing that of like, okay, how am I gonna get people onto our email list? And you Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: you guys wanna think like, I wanna think specifically about photographers, portrait photographers who own their own business. Um, when it comes to photography stuff, you guys wanna think about clients that are local to you. You don’t Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: a lead magnet that gets you, um, people on your email list from like England, and then you’re like, well, they’re Alison: Right. Melissa Arlena: family session. So. Alison: Unless you’re traveling. Melissa Arlena: Yeah, so think about like those, those lead magnets and stuff as being something that’s gonna be local for you to get people on your list. Um, like Allison said, we just did a big rebrand with the podcast, so like with prioritizing the podcast more now, uh, we redid our whole system of blogging for it and so. We’re switching to more of show notes for every episode. Um, but then I still love to use the [00:18:00] podcast transcript for like writing detailed blog posts, which then can become the rest of my Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: So Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: that, like we’ve talked about before, you know, if you write a blog post for your business, you can use that in your social media. You can use that in your email newsletter. Like I do the same thing, but I do it with podcast transcript Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: ad break. Alison: I’m just kidding. Melissa Arlena: Uh, we’re, like I said before, we’re updating our onboarding guides and everything. Um, looking at emails to clients, oh, that was another thing I did. I got so sick and tired of, I’ve had tve for, I dunno, probably like a decade at this point, and Alison: this is big. Melissa Arlena: Yeah, I’ve only had the one brand, so guys, I am one of those people. I don’t know what it is. I’ve got two brands to my business and you know, they’ve shifted on income. Like obviously I make way more on the SEO side than the photography side at this point. Um, but yet everything’s under the photography side. And so I’m looking at those systems and I was like, I’m so tired of. I have to go get the email from my [00:19:00] email to give it to my team in the other inbox. And I was like, this is stupid. Like these emails need to Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: to that inbox. And so I went ahead and I double checked with Tve before I signed up y’all. It was like, I think it brings my total, it was not much. I think I paid an extra a hundred dollars for the year for this and now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t do it sooner. So like think about that too. Like what can you Alison: Yeah, Melissa Arlena: that might cost a little bit of money, but you’re like, oh, didn’t I Alison: it’s a sigh of relief because even though it’s not much, I also feel like it should be even less. Melissa Arlena: Yeah. Alison: you know what I mean? It’s not having two brands within Tve is not nearly as separate and siloed as I imagined it would be, Melissa Arlena: for me Alison: but Melissa Arlena: ’cause I really, one Alison: yeah. Melissa Arlena: now inquiries come into the brand. They get labeled PPR. I still have all of my templates. Like that was a Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: didn’t want them to be too siloed because I’ve already got Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: and automations and emails. And if they were like, you have to recreate those, I would’ve hired that out. ’cause I would’ve been like, no. Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: would’ve been like, Alison: I, I would’ve cried. Melissa Arlena: [00:20:00] keep with this process like, ’cause. Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: So I like that. I just, all I really wanted was for emails for the SEO side to come from clients at Picture Perfect rankings and emails for the Melissa Arlina side to come from Melissa at Melissa Arlina, because I’m like, I don’t want a photography client being like, what’s clients at Picture Perfect rankings? That’s not who I Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: with. This Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: So Alison: Yeah, you confuse, you lose. Melissa Arlena: Yeah, that was one of those things that I’m like, okay, this needs to be refined and updated, and it didn’t take me that long. And I was like, oh, another thing can be reviewing, uh, processes to see what you can outsource to a va. Allison’s been preaching about her Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: like months now. And I Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: week I was like, alright, I need to go do this. And so I have a meeting next week with somebody and it was one of those, I started writing down what are the tasks I don’t wanna do? Like, you know, Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: of the little things. And then I also talked to my team about like, what are, what are the crap tasks that they don’t wanna do that are taking up their time? That’s really how you wanna evaluate with a VA guys, is [00:21:00] you need to look at it of, is this, I love this analogy type thing. Is this a $10 an hour job or is this a $50 an hour job? You know, so. Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: the camera, that’s a 50, 150, $200 an hour job kind of thing. You know, like that’s a high end job. Um, responding to an email, I mean, that can be kind of in the middle. But if a client has a simple question and it just is gonna, you’re gonna send a blog post that is a $10 an hour job. Like that’s Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: of like, Hey, your VA can be like, I can answer these questions, but then I’m gonna flag this email for you. They don’t have, it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing. Like Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: like, okay, hey, I want you to do this easy stuff. Like one of the things we’re gonna have a VA do is download images from our clients and put them into our, the folder that we need so that when we start their project, we’re ready. It could be for Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: like uploading images to a gallery. Like, she’s like, Hey, these images are done. Now I need them Alison: Yep, Melissa Arlena: time. Like that’s the type Alison: yep. Melissa Arlena: are $10 an Alison: here’s a template. Yeah. Here’s a template for a graphic in Canva. Melissa Arlena: Yes. Alison: [00:22:00] edit it to apply to these podcasts or these blog posts or these whatever, like Melissa Arlena: we’ll link, Alison: Yeah, Melissa Arlena: wedding workflows that Allison is Alison: yeah, Melissa Arlena: if you use her name Allison Bell, Alison: Yep. First and last name, I’ll have a link and you will get, I think you get a hundred dollars off your, or, which is the equivalent of a free week at the 10 hours a week. Melissa Arlena: and 50 cents for 10 Alison: An hour, Melissa Arlena: like Alison: yeah. Melissa Arlena: it’s 10, Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: minimum, Alison: And this is the time of year to be setting that up. You do not wanna be setting up or training up a VA in the middle of a busy season or quasi busy season. You need, you need that slow roll into make. But like Miss Melissa said, like write a list of things you could offload and now’s the time to be holding their hand and training them how to do it so that you’re like off without a hitch when you’re picking up. Melissa Arlena: The other thing I’m looking at too is this is a great time to identify where you need further education. So in the past, Alison: Mm. Melissa Arlena: where I’m like, okay, hey, I wanna learn, I need [00:23:00] better info on pricing, you know, and I need to Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: system. Um, I need better info on Instagram marketing. You know, like, I’m trying to think of all the courses I’ve taken over the years and Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: SEO of course, you know, this is the time where Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: is like, oh, I need to work on my SEO. And I know that because my inbox blew up last week, guys. Alison: Yeah, I remember, and it’s funny you say that, like I, this is the first year I think I am not changing my pricing. Melissa Arlena: Yeah. Alison: but January is always the time that I executed a price increase, um, or change. And I’m not changing or increasing the pricing, but I am trying to work with my lab of creating a customized set. So I’m not, I’m not changing anything. I’m just adding a potential new offer within the existing structure. Melissa Arlena: There’s a good point with that too, of just reviewing your costs of goods and your pricing, because lab costs have gone up over the last year, Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: if you haven’t paid attention to it, suddenly you’re like, whoa, I am not making Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: off of this product as I need to be. So even if you’re Alison: That’s, yeah.[00:24:00] Melissa Arlena: And I need to do this too, because Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: that’s going out tomorrow and I’m like, oh, let’s hope that pricing in the shop’s still good. I mean, I think I have mindset with pick time that it’s an automatic, like even if it goes up, they keep my same percentage that I want. So I don’t know if other, um, labs do that, but go in and review your products. Do you still wanna offer those products? Like that could be something where you’re like, you know what, no one buys this. I’m taking it off the list. Or you could be like, everybody buys this and I hate it because then they don’t buy this other thing. So like review and refine that stuff. Um, Alison: is, we just have a whole like episode. I just, I think it’s already in the list, but we’re gonna have a whole episode about that, about my pricing experiment, which had everything to do with all that. Melissa Arlena: we, Alison: So, Melissa Arlena: a three part episode for Alison: yeah. Melissa Arlena: you know, and like with the further education, like we’ve talked about YouTube for the podcast and I’ve got other people that I consult with that are like, yeah, we wanna get on YouTube. And I’m like, y’all, I don’t know anything about YouTube. I’m like, so I gotta figure out either some education for that or a person that knows YouTube [00:25:00] that like I can refer to or hire ’cause. Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: too, it’s deciding is this worth it for me to learn or is it worth it for me to outsource? Um, and I think like that’s what we were talking about with the va, like figure out on that aspect is it worth it for you to learn or worth it for someone else to take care of for you. So, so I think those are some of the things like that I’m doing. Um, and obviously remember what Alison was doing and hopefully that gives you guys some ideas too of just looking at your, at the very least, look at your. Process from start to finish with a client. And even Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: know what that process is, sit down and start writing it out and figure out like what it needs to be Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: can refine it and update it, because Alison: Yeah. And if you don’t. Melissa Arlena: the time to do it. Alison: If you don’t have that process, not sure what your process is, even the lack of a process, is it in itself a process. Uh, but that’s gonna be the next workshop we do or I do for, um, 2026 is gonna be inquiry to invoice, um, mapping out and streamlining client communication and then automating it. Woo-hoo. So if you have some issues [00:26:00] there, reach out to me and we’ll, we’ll work through that together, because that’s gonna be fun. Melissa Arlena: yeah, well I think that’s Alison: Guys, hopefully, yeah, hopefully you got some good insights and things to consider about your own, uh, business inner working. So if you have anything that was helpful, make sure you reach out to us again, feedback till next time. Melissa Arlena: Bye.