The True Cost of Editing Your Own Images
As a solo entrepreneur or small business owner, we analyze every expense. Every dollar we spend is one that we can’t pay ourselves.
Or at least that’s what it feels like.
I get that. But, there’s another way to look at it.
As a photographer, there are more things to do in a week than we have time for. Optimizing your SEO, running ads, networking, developing partnerships, finally putting together that blog post, tweaking your pricing strategy, posting more on social media, updating your website, submitting to publications to get featured, and the list goes on.
If you want to grow, you will eventually have to hire people to do some of the work you used to do, so you can focus on higher-value things. Another way to say this is, you will need to increase your leverage.
Leverage = Ratio of Output to Input
Leverage, in this context, is defined as the amount of output you get from the amount of input you put in. Another way to look at it, is the amount of revenue you get from the amount of hours you spend in a week on your business.
A simple way to figure out your current leverage is simply taking the revenue you made last year, and the average amount of hours you work in a week.
Let’s say, for example, you made $90,000 last year, and spent an average of 45 hours in a week working (multiplied by 50 weeks a year, assuming you take a couple weeks off). Your current leverage (or earnings/hour) would be $40/hour.
That means that anything that costs you less than $40/hour should be done by someone else, and anything that costs you more, you can consider doing yourself.
But now, let’s take this one step further (where the real money is made).
The Best Entrepreneurs Are The Best Investors
Your time is a finite resource. Even if you’re willing to work 80 hours a week, there’s still a limit. The best entrepreneurs look at their time as a resource to invest. And good investors look for the best return-on-investment (ROI).
That means that they’re always looking for a place to put their time that produces a higher $$ return in their business. You don’t find CEO’s organizing paperwork, or ordering paper for the printer. They’re focusing on their attention on the part of the business that only they can do. They are focusing on strategy, product, marketing and sales and other high value-adding activities.
You might be saying, “Well, I’m not a CEO.” And sure, you might be ‘technically’ right. But you’re still the only person responsible for generating more income for your business, and therefore the same principles apply to you as they do to every entrepreneur or business leader.
It’s time to start holding yourself to the same standard and thinking of your time and the activities you do as an investment.
3 Types of Activities We Do With Our Time
There are 3 types of activities we do with our time in business:
Delivering the core product or service
Value-adding (Generating revenue)
Non-value-adding (Administration & overhead)
Delivering the core product or service
This is all the things necessary to deliver on the core promise you’ve provided to your clients. They hired you to be at their wedding day, to make them feel amazing, to give them confidence through your communication in advance of the wedding. These are things that each couple is hiring you alone to do.
Value-adding activities
This includes marketing, sales and product development. This is what drives revenue. You want to maximize the return here, and subsequently the time spent. There’s likely a long list of things here that you know that you need to focus on, but simply aren’t prioritizing. But growth doesn’t happen by accident.
Extremely sophisticated marketers might know that they only need to spend 5 hours per week here to grow by 25% per year. If that’s you, great. But for the rest of us, it comes down to volume.
The more time we spend on activities that have the possibility of increasing our revenue, the more likely our revenue is going to increase. Why not increase those odds?
(Sidenote: what I mean by Product Development here is enhancing the final product you deliver your clients. This includes your overall client experience, what’s included in your packages, as well as your photography itself.)
Becoming a better photographer and artist is the #1 way to improve the quality of your product. How much time are you investing into becoming a better photographer? What would it look like if you set aside 10 hours a week to push yourself creatively and learn something new? Experiment with a new technique. Different angles. Learning from other photographers. Going to workshops. Do you think you could become a better photographer, faster?
If so, why aren’t you doing it?
Non-value-adding activities
These include bookkeeping, tracking receipts and expenses, getting insurance, as well as the non-core elements of your service-delivery. This is an important distinction. The value comes in separating out the parts that only you can do, in order to fulfill the promise you made to your clients.
You already work with others to deliver your final product, even if you don’t outsource your editing. You’re likely hiring a second shooter, who will capture photos that your clients cherish, even though it wasn’t you taking them. Does that make it any less your final product? Of course not, and your couple is going to remember that they hired you. Your brand is all that matters.
Likewise, who physically edits your image does not matter to your client. What they want is the consistency that your brand demands. They want what they were promised, and the final output is what matters. It’s easy to excuse our lack of prioritization by defining non-core activities as core, because it’s easier to do things ourselves than to do the difficult work of growing our business.
It’s easier to edit than to market ourselves
Listen. I get it. I often find myself prioritizing the easy work, the stuff that comes naturally to us. I’d rather be editing and filing receipts than learning about and improving our SEO, or writing a marketing strategy, or learning about Facebook ads. It’s mentally-exhausting, difficult work.
It also feels like a guaranteed return. I know I’m saving X amount of dollars by not hiring someone else, whereas I could invest all this time into marketing and sales and generate 0 return.
I’m with you there. But as I have to remind myself, I’m reminding you: growth is on the other side of difficult choices. If our business could grow as fast as we want it to just by doing the things that come naturally to us, it would be. But it’s not.
So what’s the true cost of editing our own images?
If your current leverage (earnings/hour) is $40/hour, and you’re spending 8 hours culling and editing a wedding, it’s costing you at least $320 to do your own editing. I say at least because there’s another cost you have to consider.
This cost is the opportunity cost. What return on investment are you forgoing by investing your time into editing versus writing that blog post you’ve been procrastinating, or that vendor you’ve been meaning to connect with, or that update to your pricing and packages? How much more could your business grow if you were able to invest those 8 hours somewhere else?
That’s the true cost of editing.
Don’t let editing hold you back from success in your business. Reclaim your time and start investing into your growth.
Tired of always thinking about your editing?
Trying new editing companies every year. Going back and forth between editing late nights by yourself, trying out new companies, and always left unsatisfied.
Well, let’s change that. Post Partner is the post-production partner to real busy photographers. We partner with you long-term to perfect your style, and we don’t stop until you’re 100% satisfied.
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