8 Signs You Need a Virtual Assistant for Your Wedding Photography Business (Like, Yesterday!)
Does your wedding photography business need a virtual assistant? Honestly, if you’re asking the question, the answer is probably yes.
A wedding photography virtual assistant can support you in any stage of your business. From starting with the right systems to scaling for growth, a VA helps you get your time back and grow your business, minus the stress.
With 17+ years of combined experience in the wedding photography industry, we see so many fellow photographers who could desperately benefit from working with a virtual assistant.
But in case you’re not convinced (we get it, it’s a big step!), we’ve put together eight signs that you and your business are ready for a VA.
Keep reading to find out if a virtual assistant for wedding photographers is right for your business.
1) You feel overworked and overwhelmed
A huge sign that your wedding photography business is ready for a virtual assistant is BURNOUT. Actually, if you’ve gotten to the point of burnout, you probably needed a VA months ago.
We know what it’s like to feel like you’re drowning in your business. Your inbox is always full, you’re staying up late to edit galleries, and it constantly feels like you’re running on fumes.
No matter how hard you work, it never feels like you’re getting ahead. There’s always more to do and that stress you’re feeling never really goes away.
2) You can’t remember the last time you took a vacation
One of the reasons why wedding photographers start their own businesses is for the sense of freedom. We want the freedom to be our own bosses and set our own hours.
But if you’re spending more time working than you are enjoying your life, what’s the point? Your business is supposed to support your life, not the other way around where you spend your whole life supporting your business.
If you can’t remember the last time you took a weekend off (let alone a full week!), closed your laptop at 5:00pm or actually enjoyed the freedom that you’re supposed to have as an entrepreneur, it’s time to consider outsourcing.
3) Repetitive, time-consuming tasks are stressing you out
Even though every wedding is different, there are parts of running a wedding photography business that can feel mundane, repetitive and time-consuming.
No one wants to spend all day answering emails, following up with vendors, curating galleries or writing blog posts. And yet, these are all essential parts of being a successful wedding photographer.
If these tasks are not only taking up all of your time but also adding to your stress levels, it’s time to bring on a VA to lighten the load so you can get back to the parts of your business you love.
4) Your customer service is falling through the cracks
We’ve seen this happen to the best photographers. Despite your good intentions, work and life get overwhelming and your customer service standards start to slip. Suddenly you’re behind on emails, delivering galleries late and forgetting to follow up.
Simply put, you don’t have enough time to keep up with your clients. Not only is this stressful for you and a negative experience for your current clients, but it can also earn you a bad reputation which can hurt future business.
It’s so easy to fall behind on customer service in the middle of a busy wedding season. Luckily, this is one of the easiest tasks for wedding photographers to outsource to virtual assistants.
5) Admin work is taking up all of your time
We’ll bet you didn’t become a wedding photographer to spend hours each week writing emails, troubleshooting issues with your CRM, staying on top of your bookkeeping and trying to keep your website up to date.
And yet, so many photographers spend the majority of their time on the admin side of their businesses! Not only is this work annoyingly time-consuming, but it also means you don’t have time for the other parts of your business that you’re passionate about.
If you think you’re spending more time on admin than actually photographing weddings, it might be time to get a photography VA to take some of that admin work off your plate.
6) You’re working too hard in your business that you don’t have time to work on your business
Working in your business looks like delivering the services that you offer. So you’re answering client emails, photographing weddings, editing galleries, etc. And while that may leave you with some happy customers, it doesn’t help you scale.
If you want your business to grow, you need to make time to work on it, not just in it. Working on your business might look like writing blog posts, posting on social media or delivering a workshop - the things you do to grow your business and market to new customers.
A virtual assistant for wedding photographers can help you work both in and on your business. They can take the mundane business tasks off your list, like customer service emails, and help you scale, such as working on passive income streams.
7) You know you need support, but you can’t afford a full-time employee
Many overworked wedding photographers are aware that they are stretching themselves too thin and could benefit from a little help. But they’ve run the numbers and realized they can’t afford to hire a full-time employee. Plus, who wants to hire, train and manage someone else?
That’s where a wedding photography VA comes in. A wedding photography virtual assistant can offer you that needed support without the commitment (and expense!) of a full-time employee.
With Together We Co’s services, you can rest easy knowing that your virtual assistant has all of the skills you need. Plus, we’ll take care of all the hiring, training and managing for you, making your VA experience seamless.
8) You’re turning down work because you can’t keep up with your existing clients
Many photographers resist hiring a wedding photography virtual assistant because it’s an added expense. But not hiring a VA might actually be the reason why you’re losing money.
If you find yourself turning down work because you can’t keep up with your current clients, you’re leaving money on the table. You’re also limiting your ability to grow and scale your business.
A virtual assistant can help lessen your workload, freeing you up to take on more clients and, ultimately, earn more money.
(Of course, if you’re turning down work because your business is thriving and you’d rather spend that time on a beach in Fiji, we love that for you!)
Work with the best virtual assistants for wedding photographers!
Hands up if any of the eight signs above sound like you? Yup, we’ve been there too.
The good news is you don’t have to run your wedding photography business on hard mode. You can say goodbye to the late nights, endless admin tasks, overflowing inbox and that tension you’ve been holding in your shoulders for longer than you can remember.
At Together We Co, we want to make your life easier so you can grow your photography business while regaining your freedom.
Our custom VA packages are designed to give you all the support you need (with no extra fluff!) based on years of refining the best systems and strategies in our own photography businesses.
Check out our services here and get in touch to finally take the stress out of your business!